I was an active user of сar sharing or ride sharing when I lived in Moscow. In recent years, this alternative option of owning a car has become popular, where short-term car hire is possible from 1 minute to several hours, days or weeks. All costs are usually included in the price — fuel, parking and insurance. All you need is to book a car through the app and pay as you use. Easy!
In 2018 in Moscow were at least 15 companies offering this service. When I moved to New Zealand I was looking for the car share options as well. Car sharing here also exists, though not as developed as in Russia or in Europe. Recently, one of the car share operators announced the launch of a weekly car rental from $99. So, I decided to find out whether using car sharing is beneficial and compare costs with owning a car.
Car sharing companies in New Zealand
As I found out, car sharing came to New Zealand in 2007. There 3 companies CityHop, Yoogo Share and Move are much talked about. Just 2 of them offer rent by the minute, and all of them allow finishing parking only on special parking places. It means you cannot complete the rent where you want as you can in Moscow for example.
At the moment, car sharing in New Zealand is available in Auckland, Wellington and Сhristchurch. CityHop is positioning itself as the first per-minute car rental company in the nation. Their cars can be used in Auckland and Wellington. The other two Yoogo Share and Move only offer EV cars in Сhristchurch and Auckland (Yoogo) and Wellington (Move). I like the whole idea of electric vehicles as it reflects my personal values for reducing emissions of CO2 and saving our planet in the long-term.
Car choice and price
CityHop offers cars from Toyota Yaris to Toyota Rav 4 SUVs or Mitsubishi Outlander. The company also has the opportunity to rent a van Toyota Hiace, Toyota Wagon and started full EV Nissan Leaf or Toyota Prius hybrid cars. All cars with automatic transmission.
YoogoShare offers only two models of electric vehicles: Hyundai IONIQ and BMW i3. Cars are equipped with GPS-navigation, climate control, cruise control, phone BT-connection, rear-view camera and other modern features.
Wellington’s Mevo offers hybrid Audi A3 Sportback e-tron®, also equipped with everything you need for comfortable driving around the city.
Prices for companies vary and depend on the annual plan, duration of use (per minute, per hour, per day or even per week), by type of car, and also by city.
All carsharing operators have an insurance option. In case of accident, the driver will be charged an amount of insurance fee. CityHop has an excess fee of $1200, which can be reduced to $500 for an additional $1.5 per hour. At Mevo the standard access fee is $1500 and $3000 for international driver license holders. At Yoogo Share insurance excess is $2000, which is quite a lot.
Restrictions on car sharing
First of all, each carsharing operator limits the daily trip time. CityHop includes 150 km, Yoogo Share 180 km, and Mevo 200 km per day. If necessary, this limit can be extended for an additional fee.
Yoogo Share launched a weekly rate with a cost of $99 in Christchurch and $145 per week in Auckland. Which is quite cheap and sounds like a sweet deal! But the price limits driving time. Thus, the car is available only from 5 pm to 9 am on workdays and from 5 pm Friday to 9 am Monday. So, you have a car only after work or on weekends. The rest of the time, the car should be parked at the charging station in CBD, or it can be used, but for an additional fee at the usual rate.
Another restriction relates to car parking when you’re finishing the rent. So, only Mevo allows you to park the car anywhere in the permitted “home area” in Wellington. The remaining companies require you to complete the rental on special parking spaces, and if the place is occupied, then park somewhere nearby and be sure to tell the exact address after that.
Perhaps, this is the main disadvantage of car sharing in New Zealand because it doesn’t give you complete freedom.
Isn’t it cheaper to take Uber?
Yeah, you might be thinking it’s better and cheaper to take a taxi. Might be. In my practice, carsharing is often cheaper. Let’s see on these 3 examples:
- In Auckland, a 10-minute drive from downtown to Mount Eden on Uber will cost you around $12. A similar trip on CityHop would cost $15 ($13 per hour + $0.40 / km). A trip on YooGo would have gone out at $ 4.5 if you pay per minute, or $ 10 per hour if you pay per hour. But in this case, the car must be returned to CBD after all.
- If you need a longer trip, for example, a 30-minute trip from the center to the North Shore, then CityHop is much cheaper, since Uber in this case already shows the cost of $30 one way.
- In Christchurch, 10 minutes on YooGo cost $ 4.5. In Wellington, it’s $6 on Mevo. The cost of a 10-minute trip to Uber is about $10–15, depending on traffic, so even short trips are cheaper.
As a result, I would say long trips on carsharing are more profitable, short trips aren’t always.
Car sharing expenses VS car owning expenses
Finally, how beneficial is to use car sharing in the city? The answer to the question depends on how often you are going to drive, whether you live close to your work or not, whether you need a car during the daytime on weekdays and from many other factors.
I tried to compare on a personal example and calculated how much it costs to own a car in Auckland, using a 2.4-litre petrol Toyota Grandis as an example. Since I don’t own a car, I asked my friend to calculate all his car expenses. He lives around 30 km from the centre and travels 2 times every day on weekdays and one day on weekends. All expenses are per year:
Car insurance $820
WOF and Service $400
Car wash $280
Parking in the city $3,120
Rego $200
91 Petrol $ 4,576
Total: $ 9,396
All expenses are $ 9,396 per year or about $180 per week. If we take into account an average of 6 days a week, then we get $30 per day or $0.30 per minute. The petrol consumption was calculated based on the average consumption in the urban cycle, the actual cost of 91st gasoline in May 2019 and the duration of the trip.
More detailed calculations you can see in this Google Spreadsheet table. Also, on the link, you can calculate YOUR travel expenses.
Now I know my expenses and can compare a trip cost in my car with car sharing costs in Auckland (Move is excluded from the table, as it is available only in Wellington):
As can be seen from the table, the weekly rental of a YooGo car on EV is more beneficial than a personal car for my friend.
In this case, of course, we take in mind the restrictions of that weekly car sharing — the price includes driving a car from 5 pm to 9 am on weekdays and the full weekends.
Thus, car share might be good for those who work in the center of Auckland and don’t use the car during the daytime hours. If the work involves constant trips or your office isn’t in CBD, then using car sharing will be an inconvenient and expensive option. Also, the carsharing option is beneficial for those who came to New Zealand for a short time, for example for students, and don’t want to bother buying a car.
In conclusion, car sharing is a good option for short trips for those who don’t have a car. It is often cheaper than taxi rides, can be used for Sunday shopping trips or for going out of town on weekends. The situation may change with the advent of such weekly tariffs, which, under certain conditions, are cheaper than owning a car. In other cases, own a car is still a more convenient option.
Hope you have found something useful in my post. If you have any questions, feel free to write a comment. Cheers!
