Anyone living in or around the Sydney CBD is probably already used to surviving without a car. With nowhere to park, exhorbitant fuel and registration costs, and constant bills for upkeep, it hardly makes sense to maintain a car unless you’re driving every day. Car-sharing service GoGet has a solution for infrequent trips, though; a full 44 car-sharing spots just next door to Central station.
As part of the $2 billion Central Park development, GoGet has negotiated spaces for 44 of its car-sharing vehicles across the high-rise’s underground and above-ground parking lots. This ‘SuperPod’ — GoGet calls its car-sharing bays ‘pods’ — is Australia’s largest by a long way, and was officially opened this morning by GoGet founder Bruce Jeffreys.
Apparently the SuperPod came about as a result of consumer demand, with interest from both Central Park residents and members of the wider community. The 44 cars are a mix of economy, sporty and luxury models — there are some Alfa Romeos and Audis in the mix, as well as standard Toyota Yaris and Hyundai i30 car-sharing staples.
With 1,000 people already living in Central Park, 8,000 expected at the completion of its construction, and tens of thousands of residents and renters in the surrounding areas, GoGet has a large captive market to advertise to. The car-sharing service is Australia’s largest, with low- and no-cost memberships and limited competition from the smaller operations of Hertz 24/7 and GreenShareCar.
It’s a great idea — populate a new high-end property development with a bunch of short-term car rentals, letting any residents or passers-by use the GoGet network to go shopping or grocery-buying or travelling out to the suburbs. These people then don’t need to buy and maintain a car, reducing the amount of vehicles sitting idle and taking up car park space. The GoGet SuperPod in Central Park is hopefully the first of many of these car-sharing mega-hubs from any brand.
There’s something very attractive about only paying for what you use from a car-sharing service — no worrying about budgeting for petrol bills, untimely repairs or that yearly slug of registration, CTP green slip and third-party insurance. We’ll have a review of the GoGet car-sharing service in the coming weeks with a test drive of some of the cars from Central Park, so stay tuned.