New rental platform lets Aussies try some of the world’s most expensive electric cars for fun: ‘Take that kid out for the whole weekend’
- A new platform dedicated to renting electric cars
- Expensive models can be used for long periods
- Eve raises funds to expand its services globally
The Australian car-sharing platform allows users to rent and take the best luxury electric cars for a long time.
Evee matches people who want to use an electric vehicle on a short-term basis with vehicle owners who charge them a fee, which the company gets at 35 percent.
Using the service, the premium Tesla Model S, which retails for more than $117,000, can be rented for $200 per day.
The owners, called “stewards,” can hand the car in for an extra fee and give advice on how to drive it.
Slava Kozlowski, Founder and CEO of Effie, told L.E Australian His goal is to let people experience electric cars.
“A lot of times they don’t know if it’s right for them, or they don’t know which car is right for them,” he said.
The Tesla Model X (pictured) is one of the electric car models available on the car-sharing platform
They love to ask a lot of questions and our host owners are happy to answer them.
If you go for a Tesla, you only get a 20-minute test drive and that doesn’t give you a full understanding of how amazing these vehicles are.
“Nothing beats taking that kid for a whole weekend, and really enjoying the fun of owning an electric car.”
According to Mr. Kozlovskii, EV owners can earn around $2,000 per month from the platform.
Mr. Kozlowski, who used to live in the ACT, set the Evee free in 2016 by originally letting customers rent a Tesla to drive from Canberra to Sydney.
Evee offers customers the opportunity to rent a car from its owner and enjoy an electric vehicle
From this humble beginning, the startup has logged more than three million electric vehicle (EV) kilometers driven by 8,000 customers and is looking to expand internationally.
It is raising money from crowdsourcing platform Birchal and has attracted interest from billionaire investors who have cashed in on co-investors in other Australian technology success stories such as graphic design platform Canva and crowdsourcing software maker Atlassian.
At the time of writing, Evee has seen 323 investors commit nearly $900,000 with 14 hours left to reach its $1.6 million goal.
At the moment, Evee only operates from major state capitals.
Electric vehicle ownership in Australia doubled between 2021 and 2022, according to Kozlowski.
Effie founder and CEO Slava Kozlowski launched his own car company in 2015, giving people the chance to drive an electric car from Canberra and Sydney.
“Australia’s car rental market is worth $2 billion annually, and electric vehicles are the fastest growing area,” he said.
“With the trust we’ve built, we can benefit from every step of the customer’s electric vehicle journey.”
Australian governments have set ambitious targets to increase the number of electric cars on the road.
ACT has adopted a sales target of 80 per cent of electric vehicle sales by 2030, while Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales aim to achieve 50 per cent market share by then.
