We are super excited to announce the fact that we enter 2021 with nearly 25% of our carshare fleet electrified! That’s right, we now have a dozen electric vehicles (EVs) or plug-in hybrid electric (PHEVs)! The journey has been an adventure, one that we’re just beginning!
The Adventure Began!
In the summer of 2017 Colorado CarShare (then eGo CarShare) commissioned the development of a roadmap to electrify our fleet. Our intent was to become the nation’s first electric vehicle (EV) car share nonprofit in order to better align our mobility, social equity and environmental values. The goal: to create a replicable, scalable model that could amplify shared electric mobility across Colorado and beyond.
Our roadmap included a 2-tiered analysis regarding how we could (attempt to) accomplish this:
- Internal considerations: operations, finances, etc.
- External issues: EV technology/costs, charging stations, and related location partnerships (i.e. we don’t own buildings)
Needless to say, we were admittedly a bit optimistic and perhaps slightly naive regarding how difficult it would be. But…we’re stubborn, and by 2018 we decided we’d give it a go, starting with our one existing plug-in hybrid EV (PHEV). By 2019 we had 3 EVs/PHEVs. We added a few more in 2020, and we’re launching 2021 now with a dozen shared EVs on the road!
For us this is huge, as it means we’re approaching 25% of our fleet of 50 vehicles that are now electrified. While serving mixed income communities we’re getting carbon out of the air! Plus our EVs are just super fun to drive…like a spaceship! As a part of this, we are now partnering with the City of Denver to launch electrified car sharing in low-income neighborhoods. Read more about that here. And we will continue to strive toward full electrification just as soon as we possibly can.
If you know of any potential partnerships that would help us to achieve our goals (especially locations with charging stations), please let us know!