Electric Car Share Adds Sydney’s Tallest Office Tower

Electric car-share clubs have been taking over multi-residential developments across Australia’s capital cities, but office buildings are now squarely in their sites. 

Sydney’s Salesforce Building is the latest to come to the party with the installation of Outbound’s Electric Car Club in Sydney’s tallest commercial tower, 180 George Street. 

Electric Car Club is also earmarked for Addenbrooke’s $400-million Merchant House commercial redevelopment when it is completed in 2024. 

The bank of three communal Teslas will be on offer for tenants of the building to use for offsite meetings during the week, or to rent for a weekend for about $220. 

Outbound chief executive Luke Rust said the club enabled city workers to commute on foot or public transport and leave their car at home.

“It’s all about convenience,” Rust said. 

“It’s a bit like ride sharing, except you do the driving … it’s so easy to leave your own car home and save on that cost–and still have access to any part of Sydney.”

▲ Barangaroo in Sydney is among the Lendlease developments slated for EV charging.

Lendlease project director Steve McGillivray said the communal electric cars would offer an environmentally responsible alternative to tenants. 

“It will enhance the excellent connectivity of the Sydney Place precinct and extend the state-of-the-art amenity available to tenants,” McGillivray said. 

“We’re finding that businesses continue to be drawn to high-quality, next-generation workplaces that align with their culture and brand, and also help set them apart from competitors in attracting and retaining talent.”

Lendlease is also rolling out about 80 electric-vehicle-charging stations nationwide across key retail and office precincts to meet growing customer demand.

The charging stations are being incorporated at 16 commercial and office precincts nationally including Barangaroo and Darling Square and Melbourne Quarter, as well as a range of shopping centres in NSW, Queensland and WA.

Access to a communal vehicle is also increasingly enticing amid rising cost of living pressures and a steady decline in car ownership in Australia.

Beulah is introducing the Sth Bnk Auto Club, a first-of-its-kind fleet of luxury vehicles for residents to use. It has committed to a full EV fleet by 2030. 

The shift to include communal electric vehicles in residential developments followed a meeting of state and federal building and energy ministers in October 2022 where they agreed to update the National Construction Code minimum energy efficiency requirements from 6 to 7 Star NatHERS ratings to ensure residential projects are equipped for the future.

The reforms, which came into effect in May this year, include additional energy efficiency measures that extend to making new homes electric vehicle-ready to avoid the costly exercise of retrofitting chargers.