Mevo is in voluntary administration

Jaime Lyth, reporting for BusinessDesk (paywalled):

New Zealand car share company Mevo has gone into voluntary administration a month after it crowdfunded $3.28 million.
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Mevo recently claimed it was valued at $25m on Auckland-based crowdfunding platform Snowball Effect, where it raised $3.28m in capital after setting a $2.2m target in Feb.

There seems to be a little curse on my blog. Three times now, projects I've profiled on my website have gotten into various shades of financial trouble. The Workshop closed shop, Kaicycle shut its HotRot, now Mevo is in trouble.

This is obviously par for the course of doing things differently. New ideas are risky and they don't always work out. But I have to say, Mevo being on the brink of going away really stings.

I got my full driver's license to drive Mevo. Their car share service is astoundingly good.

For many, it was an easy way in to test electric cars before fronting up the cash for an Atto 3 or a Polestar.

**For us, it meant we could live full and connected lives without owning a car.** In the rare instances we needed one, like a late night journey out to Porirua or a trip to the tip, we'd pay for the time then leave the car somewhere in the central city.

I genuinely believe that Mevo's model is the future of cars in cities. Car shares provide convenient access to cars for the 5% of journeys that public transport can't provide.

It's an idea strong enough that I pay $40 a month to get Mevo credit. If we wanted to, we could easily put more in and would do so happily.

But Mevo has clearly been struggling.

Back in January, we opened the Mevo app and there were no cars. Anywhere. It felt ominous. That warm day in January was a sign of a persistent problem Mevo put on customers in Wellington and Auckland too.

For months now, there's been basically no cars available in the app. I've sat on the app for ages waiting to be the first to reserve a car wherever it would show. It was awkward and infuriating.

Mevo had a dispute with its vehicle provider and they couldn’t provide enough vehicles to meet demand. They wanted to get people leasing their own cars to Mevo for "passive income", but it seems that wasn't picking up steam fast enough.

The straw that broke the camel's back was an investor backed out of their funding injection because Mevo breached some conditions. Cashflow must have gotten crunchy. In come the administrators.

According to reporting from RNZ, Mevo still has a future. It could be reborn like a phoenix.

I really hope it does. Apps like CityHop are shittier quality and less flexible. Plus, CityHop is owned by Toyota. Considering their commitment to keep us on fossil fuels and their persistent touting of bullshit ideas like hydrogen vehicles, I'd rather not give my cash to them.

I'd rather only pay for a car when I need it, because we have a life in a highly walkable, public transport-friendly city. Owning a car is a financial black hole, and I don’t want to participate in that quite yet.

Mevo is a fantastic service, despite a rough few months. They've allowed us to stay dependent on footpaths and bus lanes even though once or twice a month we need to drive.

I'm holding out hope for you, Mevo. We haven't cancelled our subscription yet. Hopefully you can make it out of this.