EV Car Sharing launched in Singapore

Announced in July 2016 by the Singaporean Land Transport Authority and the Economic Development Board, the EV Car Sharing program will kick off on December 12^th. The programs has encountered some delays, or as Franck Vitte, MD at BlueSG, who supplies the charging facilities and the Electric Vehicles, says: ” All the processes to get the authorisation for constructing the (charging) stations have been something entirely new in Singapore, not only for us, but for everyone...”

BlueSG is a subsidiary of French electric car-sharing operator Bollore Group and was selected to run a fleet of 1000 units by 2020. Eventually, the vehicles will use one of the 2000 charging points in about 500 locations of which 400 are to be expected in living areas and another 100 in commercial areas, including the Central Business District.

Bollore has built up its experience by running Autolib, Paris based EV Car Sharing service. Autolib runs over 4000 EV’s and has 130.000 users.

Singapore is said to be an excellent testing ground for the car sharing initiative with its relatively small geographical size, dense urban environment and excellent infrastructure. In addition, Singaporeans have been, for a long time, used to not owning a car; vehicle taxation is extremely high, but public transport, the taxi network and ride-hailing solutions such as Uber and Grab were quickly embraced by the tech savvy Singaporeans.

Users will have to sign up via the BlueSG website or mobile phone application and will receive a dedicated BlueSG membership card. They can also link their EZ-Link card, which is a chargeable card that gives access to public transport. Once registered, the user finds a vehicle via the app, taps the card, unplugs the car and starts driving. All the vehicles are equipped with GPS and are fully connected to a 24/7 assistance. A 15 minute drive is estimated to cost about SGD 10 or less than USD 7.5.

Singaporeans who have been able to test-drive the vehicle are happy to see Singapore stepping up with this green initiative. However, as the vehicles are rather small and not suitable for families, it’s value add is questioned by others. BlueSG will need to demonstrate its rationale in a country that offers a large variety of comfortable, fast and cheap alternatives.