Car-sharing firm Tribecar adds 400 vehicles to fleet, expands into corporate leasing

The moves come after Tribecar's acquisition of local car rental company Popular Rent A Car. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE - Car-sharing service Tribecar is adding 400 cars to its fleet of more than 1,300 vehicles following the acquisition of local car rental company Popular Rent A Car.

These vehicles will be used for car-sharing as well as for corporate leasing, which is a new business for Tribecar.

Besides having 200 corporate rental clients, Popular Rent A Car, which has been in business since 1996, also has WhizzCar, its own car-sharing service.

By mid-November, WhizzCar members will have access to all services on the Tribecar platform.

Tribecar said that it will be seamless for members to port over their deposits and credits from the WhizzCar platform onto Tribecar’s.

On its website, WhizzCar lists 56 pick-up locations. Tribecar has more than 1,000 locations.

Tribecar’s spokesman said that the number of locations will be consolidated and there may be “some shuffling in time to come”.

For car-sharing, the vehicles can be rented on an hourly, daily or weekly basis, and, as with most car-sharing services other than BlueSG, the cars must be returned to the same location they were taken from.

Unusual for such services, Tribecar and WhizzCar vehicles can be used to offer ride-hailing services.

Both companies are listed as fleet partners under the Grab PowerHour scheme, which ride-hailing platform provider Grab said gives drivers more flexibility in rental and driving hours.

Tribecar said that it is the only car-sharing service with vehicles that have the needed insurance coverage and compliances to regulations for commercial use.

Besides being able to offer ride-hailing service on Grab and Gojek, the vehicles can be used for delivery jobs on foodpanda, Deliveroo, Lalamove and Ninja Van.

In March, Tribecar bought Car Club, the first and oldest car-sharing outfit in Singapore. The latest acquisition brings the total number of vehicles in the group to 1,700.

GetGo, another prominent car-sharing service operator, said that it has 1,800 cars at more than 1,300 locations. Apart from the sole van in its fleet, GetGo vehicles are not insured for commercial use.

Tribecar, which started operations in 2016, said that the Popular Rent A Car acquisition was an “eight-digit deal”. It declined to disclose the actual amount. The Popular Rent A Car name will remain in use.

Tribecar co-founder Adrian Lee said the latest acquisition is a way for the company to “enter a new market space of car rental and sharing”.

He estimated that the corporate leasing arm will eventually contribute between 20 per cent and 30 per cent to the overall revenue.

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