An electric car sharing scheme has been launched in Christchurch to allow residents and businesses to borrow cars to run between hubs spread around the city.

EDITORIAL OPINION: Dulling the sheen of excitement about New Zealand's coming age of electric cars has been the cost.

New Zealand lost its "affordable" new electric car option when Nissan pulled the $40,000 Leaf off the market last year, and the affordable new 2017 option is the $60,000 Hyundai Ioniq electric car.

That cost has stalled the resale market for electric cars, as fleet purchasers have been deterred by the high costs.

Yoogo The new electric cars available to the Christchurch public through a vehicle-sharing scheme at the Christchurch Art Gallery, the site of one of the initial vehicle hubs and charging stations.

Going green has thus largely been a lifestyle choice for the wealthy, and the small market (there were just 4200 electric cars in total registered by last month) has meant the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions have been negligible.

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* Moving on from the almighty car: A change up for Christchurch's transport mix

* EV future-proofed central city rental car hub​

* Editorial: When it comes to Christchurch's electric vehicles, good things take time

John Kirk-Anderson Christchurch's got its first fast electric car charging station last April.

But what if fleet users didn't have to buy new cars but could share them instead? That is the promise of what is being billed as the one of the only fully electric car-share schemes in the world launching in Christchurch in November.

The Yoogo scheme will bring 100 electric vehicles to the city, with 11 organisations already signed up, including the Christchurch City Council, Environment Canterbury, Ara Institute, Canterbury District Health Board, Beca and Tonkin and Taylor.

The general public can sign up for the car-share scheme too, hiring by the minute, hour or day from the initial hubs of Christchurch International Airport, the West End and the Christchurch Art Gallery. (Future hubs are planned for Lichfield St, The Crossing car park, Ara, University of Canterbury, Papanui and Fendalton Libraries, and Lyttelton Community Centre.)

The electric part of the scheme will get the buzz but potentially the sharing part is a bigger deal. Mayor Lianne Dalziel says council staff using the cars will mean it can reduce its own fleet of petrol cars by 52. Although not all of the other organisations will have the scale of the council, their example suggests that a fleet of 100 shared electric cars could take up to 500 petrol cars off the road.

The council's reduction on emissions will add up to 450 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, and by outsourcing part of its fleet, which sits idle when not being used, there will be savings in maintenance and depreciation making the project cost-neutral overall.

The council should be applauded for taking the lead on the scheme. It will stack up economically for the city and at the same time make a convenient and guilt-free technology more available for all of us.

As Dalziel said, "we as a city want to be ahead of the curve".

When the cost of admission to even get on the curve is $60,000, it takes innovative leadership and some cooperation to make it accessible.

A car-share scheme may not lead individuals to ditch their gas-guzzlers quite yet but the advantages are easy to imagine. If you have been driving into the city centre because you need a car during the day, you may decide to make the commute via public transport and take a share car for the errand instead.

A low-cost on-ramp into the world of electric cars could mean more people trying the experience and the side-effects snowballing: fewer solo commuters, less congested roads, more popular and thus efficient public transport, better air quality.

A 21st-century city is not just about what we build, it is about how we use it. The electric car-share experiment is one we will watch with interest as we drive into the future.