Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Victoria Carter, founder of car-sharing company Cityhop.

The benefits of car share in an increasingly dense and urban Auckland are clear. Why own a car and carry all of the costs when you use it so little? Why not go easier on the earth by sharing resources? Why not make more trips by public transport and only use a car when you really need one?

Today this appears obvious, but how about 12 years ago when Auckland’s pioneering car share service Cityhop was getting underway? Not only was it a time before smartphones, but a time before awareness of the sharing economy had been built out by services like Airbnb.

Cityhop is now in Auckland and Wellington, and for way less per hour than an e-scooter, you can hire everything from little runabouts to great big vans to completely electric Volkswagen e-golfs.

The founder is someone who’s been at the front of a lot of change. Victoria Carter ONZM has been a lawyer, PR practitioner, board member, politician and lately, the first female chair of The Northern Club, a longrunning private members club in Auckland. She’s also helped get more fairness for kindergarten funding and helped make the Auckland Arts Festival happen.

To talk about her mission to reduce car ownership, Victoria Carter joined Business is Boring.

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