Re-examining private car ownership
The end of the fuel excise discount on October 1 signals an immediate need for the re-examination of car ownership and petrol vehicles. With prices set to increase significantly, in line with those seen prior to the excise discount, many are concerned at the rising costs of living.
Despite this, the Albanese government’s reintroduction of the full excise presents Australians with an opportunity to reassess private vehicle ownership and its cost economically and environmentally.
Car ownership as a concept
Traditional car ownership is undergoing radical transformation at present, with mobility solutions and community e-vehicle startups disrupting the car market. Consumers are slowly turning to EVs and ownership models which save on maintenance, petrol and insurance costs whilst also reducing emissions. However, the transition is not fast enough.
Despite the fallout of the Ukraine war surrounding fuel supplies and prices, the use of petrol cars remains the dominant choice for consumers. ABS data shows that Australia has over 20M registered vehicles on the road, with over 92 percent of households owning a car.
Petrol vehicles were the largest group by fuel type, representing over 71 percent of vehicles, and electric vehicles accounted for just 1.57 percent. Furthermore, an 2021 analysis of car ownership by insight’s agency ID, has revealed that 53 percent of households in Australia have access to two or more motor vehicles. However, most of these vehicles typically sit idle for 95 percent of the day and cost the average Australian family $22,000 per year.
And it isn’t just the economy which is impacted by car ownership, car pollution is one of the major causes of global warming, with the oil and gas industry representing 45% of anthropogenic GHG emissions. With the cost of living increasing, climate change worsening and petrol costs rising, why are we stuck on a model which is detrimental to the planet and our finances?
The future of shared e-mobility
Petrol cars and household ownership cannot remain with the climate and global economic market as they are. In fact, the Electric Vehicle Council recently announced that Australia should follow suit with the UK and EU by banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2035. Though this has been labelled extreme, widespread disruption to the petrol car market is not a question of ‘if’, but when.
As urban environmental planners and developers move to greener and more sustainable models, greater options are arising surrounding car ownership. Businesses, such as ours, are pushing for more residential and commercial buildings to provide electric vehicles, scooters and bikes on demand, and for the concept of car ownership to change altogether.
Mobility solutions and startups which provide electric vehicles on demand are, undoubtedly, the way of the future. However, innovation in this space needs greater support from businesses, governments and consumers. Likewise, regional communities must not be forgotten in the move towards e-mobility.
The excise discount ending in October signals the urgent need for petrol car ownership to end, in order for our cities and regions to exist in a more sustainable and economically viable way.
ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first, and leading, electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
Build your Electric Mobility Hub
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Australia’s Build to Rent sector is moving quickly and expectations around how these buildings perform day to day are rising just as fast. The infrastructure installed during development has to keep working once a building moves from delivery to operations. If it doesn’t, the operations team is the one who ends up dealing with the fallout.
We’ve now deployed shared electric vehicles across all of HOME’s BTR communities in Richmond, Southbank, Docklands and Parramatta. This partnership is a special one for us. We've had a relationship with the HOME team since 2022 when they launched their first building. We shared our vision, what we were building and what we wanted to deliver together. It wasn’t the right timing then, but we said we'd stay in touch. We did, and it’s great to now be rolling out a consistent resident experience across their entire BTR portfolio. Their fleet includes Tesla Model 3, Tesla Model Y, BYD Dolphin and Geely EX5, all fully integrated with the Ohmie GO backend so our team can monitor performance, respond quickly to support requests and keep everything running smoothly.
HOME were clear about what they wanted. They needed a solution that worked quietly in the background without adding admin and another thing to manage for their already busy operations and site team. With Ohmie GO, they don’t manage anything. We handle the full stack for them including maintenance, cleaning, insurance, 24/7 support, resident verification, billing, operations and ongoing system management. All they receive is a clean monthly report so they can track utilisation and plan for future expansion, whether that is more shared EVs, shared e-bikes, EV charging or e-bike charging.
A lot of solutions in the market look end-to-end and integrated on the surface, but in reality rely on multiple vendors stitched together. That might work on day one, but it usually leads to long term risk and operational headaches. We built Ohmie GO to avoid that entirely. It is a fully turnkey platform designed specifically for large residential buildings and something we’re genuinely proud of. We’ll be sharing more detail around this over the coming months, but our positioning is resonating well with premium residential and BTR developers, typically the ones who really care about the end outcomes of their residents. We’re also proud to be partnering with a company like HOME who share the same mindset and values around resident experience and long term building performance.
What made our partnership even more exciting was the integration with two different car stacker models across the portfolio. This is the first shared EV and car stacker integration in Australia. We always say the devil is in the details and that proved true here. Making the resident experience feel simple requires a lot of work behind the scenes. Adding in a car stacker flow means you’ve got to have the right team and capabilities to deliver. Kyle, our founder, often calls the result the "EV vending machine". The stackers are integrated with charging and the ability to call the car directly from the car stacker with the Ohmie GO app. It is a very clean, future proof setup that we will continue rolling out across new projects.
We're looking forward to working with HOME as their e-mobility partner to bring the best solution to your residents.
ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first, and leading, electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
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HOME BTR Portfolio Partnership with Ohmie GO
Remove the friction of installing and managing EV chargers in your building. An end-to-end managed solution handling building make ready, installation, energy management, customer experience, and more.
The Electric Mobility Platform for Buildings
We've worked tirelessly with developers, earning the trust of the largest players in the property industry. Today, our solutions can be found in some of the most progressive buildings in Australia. Ohmie GO has always believed in offering more than just a service; we provide an end-to-end managed e-mobility platform for building residents. Our journey began in 2018 with exclusive on-demand access to shared electric vehicles, conveniently located in building carparks. In 2022, we expanded our offerings to include sought-after shared micro-mobility solutions, such as e-bikes and e-scooters. Now, we're taking the next logical step: removing the complexity and simplifying the process for buildings to deliver and scale world-class EV charging solutions without compromising the resident experience.
Ohmie GO is the first end-to-end electric mobility platform for buildings, designed as a modular, mix-and-match solution. This flexibility allows buildings to customise their solutions to meet specific needs, eliminating the need for separate providers and multiple apps for different services. We offer all electric mobility solutions in a single hub, delivering a seamless experience for users.
Introducing: Smart EV Charging
We're introducing two end-to-end managed smart EV charging solutions: "OUR Charger," a shared charger located in the building for resident use, and "MY Charger," a private charger situated in an individual resident's parking bay.
Both charging solutions include ongoing service and maintenance, charging history, payment processing, and much more. We spent time developing a resident experience that is consistent across all our e-mobility solutions, and unique to in-building charging. A building's electric mobility hub is available to residents via the Ohmie GO app. Here, they can book and access all their solutions, including charging, with the touch of a button. The only difference is that "MY Charger" appears exclusively in an individual resident's Ohmie GO app and is not visible to other residents.
Some of the key benefits include:
- Smart Energy Management: Install more EV chargers that intelligently share power to avoid costly upgrades and get the best charging experience.
- Billing & Payment: Easily allocate energy costs to residents for vehicle charging and provide access to usage history and data.
- Designed to Scale: Deploy a solution which reduces costly building upgrades in the future and provides a seamless experience for residents.
- NCC Compliant: Our solutions help buildings to meet the current NCC (National Construction Code) compliance forEV charging in Australia.
We're proud to announce that both "OUR Chargers" and"MY Chargers" are operational across several buildings in our partner portfolio. We’ll be releasing individual blog articles on a few of them in the coming weeks.
To learn more about smart EV charging solutions, click here. To speak to an expert and get started with Ohmie GO in your building, please click here.
ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first, and leading, electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
Ohmie GO unveils OUR Charger and MY Charger
Imagine having access to an electric vehicle, bike or scooter wherever you go – work, home, hotels. That’s the vision of start-up Ohmie GO, which has convinced some of the nation’s biggest developers, including ASX-listed Mirvac, to install “e-mobility” stations in its projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Click here to read the full article
ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first, and leading, electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
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