Search the Community

Home-grown transport and engineering group Goldbell is in advanced talks to buy over an electric car-sharing outfit in Singapore. The Straits Times understands that discussions for the takeover of BlueSG's operations have gone on for about a year, and an in- principle deal has been struck. BlueSG is owned by a unit of French transportation giant Bolloré Group. It was launched in 2017 as the first electric car-sharing operation in Singapore. The company now runs a fleet of around 670 cars, with about 1,500 charging points across the island. It has around 80,000 subscribers. The imminent sale to Goldbell - a 41-year-old commercial vehicle specialist which has branched out to on-demand bus services and car subscription schemes - comes three years after a similar car-sharing service the French group owned in Paris ceased in 2018. Sources said the sale-purchase deal should be transacted at $20 million to $25 million - based on the scrap value of the battery-powered sub-compacts. It would allow Goldbell to continue running the car-sharing operations with BlueSG's current network of charging points. The Straits Times understands that the protracted nature of the sale has to do with government grants which BlueSG has been given. BlueSG was not reachable for comment, while Goldbell declined to do so. Latest information available from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority showed that BlueSG incurred net losses of $3.4 million in 2017, $7.3 million in 2018 and $9.3 million in 2019. Bolloré's car-sharing operations in Paris ended with losses despite hefty government subsidies. Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) transport economist Walter Theseira said schemes such as BlueSG's face hurdles because "Singapore's public transport and private transport service options are just too good for car-sharing to make sense for many people". "Most trips would be cheaper by taxi and private-hire car than by renting a car-sharing service and driving yourself, especially after parking charges, travel to the car-sharing parking location, and so on," he added. Prof Theseira said: "Even in global cities where taxis are substantially more expensive and public transport is worse, it is hard to say that car-sharing has been a huge success," he said, noting that shared cars are "hardly the game-changer that people have initially talked about" in terms of replacing demand for private cars. Prof Theseira said the BlueSG cars are also too small for some families, and they are not allowed to be used for private-hire purposes. These limit their appeal further. But the economist who heads SUSS' Urban Transport Management Masters programme said BlueSG's charging network is viable. "It is a business model ahead of its time in Singapore," he said. "Unfortunately, the development of such networks is hamstrung by the chicken-and-egg problem - nobody living in HDB or condos will buy an EV without charging available at their home carpark, and nobody will build charging points without EV customers. "The network has potential but its value is likely to be only realised a few years from now." BlueSG's sale, if concluded, follows the exit of electric taxi operator HDT in November last year, and the demise of car-sharing firm Smove last June.