Sydney is a city where an entirely un-special parking spot can sell for A$120,000, so there's clearly a lot of room for a clever startup to come and shake things up.
Divvy is hoping it's that startup. While it began with a similar peer-to-peer model to Airbnb — connecting people who have a spare car space and would like to earn some extra cash, with those in desperate need of somewhere to park — it's now planning to expand the service and help corporate buildings manage their parking assets.
SEE ALSO: This Sydney startup wants to reinvent your boring old Word docs
Nick Austin, founder and CEO of Divvy.
IMAGE: DIVVY
Launched in 2011, Divvy announced Tuesday it had closed a A$2.5 million funding round and formalised relationships with corporate property owners DEXUS Property Group, GPT Group and Knight Frank, among others, who will use the platform to manage the parking available in their Australian buildings.
Besides investment funding, Divvy makes money by collecting a commission on transactions.
Currently, once users have signed up to Divvy online, they can enter their destination and adjust the maximum distance they're willing to walk from that spot. If a monthly space is available, they can book right away. Otherwise, Divvy will SMS or email them an alert when one opens up.
However, the startup will be releasing a mobile app in the next few weeks to book hourly and daily spaces around Australia, before pushing out to Asia and Europe, Nick Austin, CEO and founder of Divvy Parking, told Mashable Australia. "We want to move into the short term parking market across cities globally to improve access to spaces that are sitting empty," he said. "Not just on a monthly basis, but hourly or daily."
While it operates in greater Sydney, the company is starting to expand in Melbourne and Brisbane, and plans to ramp up in those cities over the next couple of months thanks to the cash injection.
The partnerships with some of Australia's largest property owners suit the way workplaces are changing globally, Austin said. As more employees are teleworking from home or coming to the office only three or four days a week, more dynamic work arrangements are necessary. At the moment, city parking is generally booked on a monthly basis in commercial spaces, he said, so it doesn't suit these emerging trends.
Screenshot of the Divvy platform.
IMAGE: DIVVY
As an average citizen, it can also be hard to figure out where to park at all. "If you look at the Sydney CBD, there are around 1,200 buildings and about 65 public parking lots," Austin said. "They have completely different access systems, so we're creating a common system across the market, much like Uber."
By offering a standard platform, people can access parking at a broader footprint for 30-50% cheaper than a traditional parking lot, he claims.
Austin is positive city trends will work out well for Divvy. "There's very little all-day street parking left in Sydney and little parking being built into new premises," he said. "There are a lot of macro elements working in our favour."
Sydney is a city where an entirely un-special parking spot can sell for A$120,000, so there's clearly a lot of room for a clever startup to come and shake things up.
Divvy is hoping it's that startup. While it began with a similar peer-to-peer model to Airbnb — connecting people who have a spare car space and would like to earn some extra cash, with those in desperate need of somewhere to park — it's now planning to expand the service and help corporate buildings manage their parking assets.
SEE ALSO: This Sydney startup wants to reinvent your boring old Word docs
Nick Austin, founder and CEO of Divvy.
IMAGE: DIVVY
Launched in 2011, Divvy announced Tuesday it had closed a A$2.5 million funding round and formalised relationships with corporate property owners DEXUS Property Group, GPT Group and Knight Frank, among others, who will use the platform to manage the parking available in their Australian buildings.
Besides investment funding, Divvy makes money by collecting a commission on transactions.
Currently, once users have signed up to Divvy online, they can enter their destination and adjust the maximum distance they're willing to walk from that spot. If a monthly space is available, they can book right away. Otherwise, Divvy will SMS or email them an alert when one opens up.
However, the startup will be releasing a mobile app in the next few weeks to book hourly and daily spaces around Australia, before pushing out to Asia and Europe, Nick Austin, CEO and founder of Divvy Parking, told Mashable Australia. "We want to move into the short term parking market across cities globally to improve access to spaces that are sitting empty," he said. "Not just on a monthly basis, but hourly or daily."
While it operates in greater Sydney, the company is starting to expand in Melbourne and Brisbane, and plans to ramp up in those cities over the next couple of months thanks to the cash injection.
The partnerships with some of Australia's largest property owners suit the way workplaces are changing globally, Austin said. As more employees are teleworking from home or coming to the office only three or four days a week, more dynamic work arrangements are necessary. At the moment, city parking is generally booked on a monthly basis in commercial spaces, he said, so it doesn't suit these emerging trends.
Screenshot of the Divvy platform.
IMAGE: DIVVY
As an average citizen, it can also be hard to figure out where to park at all. "If you look at the Sydney CBD, there are around 1,200 buildings and about 65 public parking lots," Austin said. "They have completely different access systems, so we're creating a common system across the market, much like Uber."
By offering a standard platform, people can access parking at a broader footprint for 30-50% cheaper than a traditional parking lot, he claims.
Austin is positive city trends will work out well for Divvy. "There's very little all-day street parking left in Sydney and little parking being built into new premises," he said. "There are a lot of macro elements working in our favour."
Getting stuck behind a slow, smelly semi-truck is no fun, but big vehicles are often too hard to pass on a narrow two-lane road. But Samsung just came up with a very clever solution to this problem.
The Argentinian arm of the South Korean tech giant is showing off what it calls a Safety Truck, a semi truck with a wireless camera mounted on the front, displaying the road ahead on a screen tacked on to the back of the truck. The move is a part of an effort to reduce head-on collisions from passing.
SEE ALSO: Google launches website to address safety concerns about self-driving cars
The front-mounted camera broadcasts its signal to four monitors on the back of the truck
The front-mounted camera broadcasts its signal to four monitors on the back of the truckto give drivers behind the truck a good view ahead. In addition to making passing safer, Samsung says that this would let drivers see any obstacles in the road ahead, preventing the need for sudden emergency braking.
Samsung said the truck used for testing isn't currently operational anymore, but it is working with government and non-government safety agencies to develop the tech further.
It seems like it would work well on two-lane roads, but it wouldn't really have much use on multi-lane highways. The screen could also prove to be a distraction, and image quality issues could be a concern as well.
It's an innovative approach to road safety, but Samsung hasn't provided much of a timeline for its development, so who knows when, or even if it will be adopted.
Elon Musk's dream of having everyone zip around in affordable electric cars has been delayed.
The Tesla Model 3 was expected to be unveiled as early as March 2016 and get a late 2017 launch date, but now it looks like it won't start production until 2018, according to documents obtained by electric-car news site Inside EVs.
SEE ALSO: Speed demon: One man's mission to make his Tesla go faster
The Model 3 will cost $35,000 before government subsidies, making it $40,000 less than the larger Model S, and putting it in line with the BMW's 3 Series.
Tesla is no stranger to production delays. Its Model X crossover was supposed to debut in 2013, but that date was pushed back to late 2015. At the time of this writing, Tesla has yet to debut a production version of the Model X.
Production delays are a reality of making cars, but what sets Tesla apart from others is its announcement of new models years before they hit the market.
Production delays are a reality of making cars, but what sets Tesla apart from others is its announcement of new models years before they hit the market.Typically, automakers don't make an official announcement until the car is nearly ready for production within a year or so.
Considering the Model 3 will be Tesla's first truly mainstream product — the Model S currently starts at $75,000 before government subsidies — the company would be wise not to rush a launch. The Model 3 will likely attract new customers, which makes it a bit of a make-or-break car for Tesla.
But competitors may be out to steal its thunder. Chevrolet is rumored to release its Bolt EV, which features a 200-mile range and price that undercuts the Model 3 at $30,000, in 2017. Meanwhile, Nissan will reportedly release a new Leaf that same year.
