Christopher Tan, Straits Times 1 Mer 08;
JAPANESE carmaker Honda is putting the brakes on its car-sharing scheme here, making it the second such programme to fold in eight months.
The company said the plan, which saw 2,500 members share 100 cars, had become a 'nightmare' to manage.
'As membership grew... we couldn't maintain the service quality which we set initially,'' said Mr Toshio Iwamoto, managing director of Honda ICVS Singapore.
ICVS stands for Intelligent Community Vehicle System.
The company was struggling to keep tabs on the 21 'ports' where members picked up and dropped off the cars. Even a second-generation operating system introduced in October 2006 did not help.
'Everybody expected cars to be available,'' Mr Iwamoto said. 'But in reality, we could not guarantee.
'There would sometimes be hiccups, and dissatisfaction and complaints from members would arise.''
Honda ICVS started in 2002 with 50 members sharing 15 Honda Civic Hybrid cars parked in three locations.
Today, it has 2,500 members sharing 100 cars parked in 21 ports.
Mr Iwamoto said Honda could have expanded the fleet, but the availability of parking spaces was also a problem. Parking charges in the Central Business District rose by up to 40 per cent last year, he said.
Last July, transport giant ComfortDelGro Corp pulled the plug on its CitySpeed car-sharing company. It said falling car prices had made the business proposition less viable.
Honda ICVS has written to its members to inform them that the scheme would fold by the end of the month. Pro-rated membership fees would be refunded. Mr Iwamoto said the company is giving each member a $20 shopping voucher 'as a token of appreciation''.
'We are very sorry,'' he said.
Mr Iwamoto said Honda ICVS' 20 employees will be redeployed to various companies 'with some relation to Honda'', such as Honda car distributor Kah Motor and Honda motorcycle agent Boon Siew.
Kah Motor also said it is in talks to buy some of Honda ICVS' newer cars. 'We may use them to start a car-sharing scheme of our own,'' Kah's product manager Vincent Ng said.
Honda ICVS' programme in Singapore had been profitable. According to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, it made $109,146 after tax last year, versus $278,826 in 2006 and $125,911 in 2005.
There are two more car-sharing programmes in Singapore. One is run by pioneer NTUC Income and the other by Popular Rent-A-Car.
Neither could be reached for comment.
