Smove Car sharing

Firstly, to clarify, this is not a sponsored post. Just want to share because i find it worthwhile. 

As with my previous post in March 2015 (view it here) , I never liked car sharing because of 2 main reasons, one - the limited free mileage and two - the need to return the vehicle to the same location.

Smove car sharing totally addressed this 2 issues spot on for me.

The company started out as with a pure electric car fleet before switching to the current fleet of hybrid Prius-Cs. Their system is simple. Pay a one-time fee of $19 (See how you can get a rebate to waive it off below) and start driving at $5 per 15 mins. No petrol or mileage or other hidden cost.

One of Smove Prius-C 

(Image taken from smove.sg)

So $20 per hour isn't exactly cheap...I hear you but it does offer you the flexibility of renting for less than an hour. Say half an hour or 2 hours 15 mins and you are really paying for the time you are in the car and not for time when the car is parked at the carpark.

I'll be honest with you, having joined a few previously, the above reason isn't enough to make me want to join another car sharing scheme. What's alluring me to join is this:

You can collect a car at a location and return it at another location. 

WOW! That makes sense for me. Let me tell you a place which I like to go but am always put off by taking public transport there > IKEA Alexandra. It's nowhere near a train station and for bus services only 2 comes from Redhill mrt and 1 comes from Queenstown mrt and they are not really frequent.

Now I can spend $5, take the car at Commonwealth MRT (one of their locations) and return it at Anchorpoint (another of their location). Then I just cross the road. I can even take up to 4 friends with me and I don't have to pay a single cent for parking. That's what I called flexible.

And, what's more I checked with Smove, as they are using very fuel efficient hybrid cars, the Prius C,

They does not have mileage limits on their cars

So no matter how far i drive,  my cost is fixed at $20 per hour.

Yes, I hear you say that how far can I drive in half an hour or an hour? But what about their 'package deals':

Weekdays (Mon till Fri): 10am to 5pm at $60. That's 7 hours for the price of 3 hours. 

Weeknights (Mon till Thu) 6:30pm to 8:30am at $40. Drive off from a station near your office and return next morning you come back to office.

On times like weekends starting from Friday nights and outside the above timings, it's still at an rather affordable $90 per 12 hours or $130 per 24 hours. Remember this is the actual amount you have to spend (except for ERP and carparks). No petrol cost, no hidden cost, no variable cost and comprehensive insurance is covered. 

Check them out their website at Smove.sg. Click on this link and get $20 credit from Smove while promotion lasts. That means its more than enough to offset the one time fee and there is no joining fee.

Something interesting - The whole time you have the car, there is no car key. To unlock the car, you simply tab your pre-registered EZlink card at the device next to the IU and the car will unlock itself. To lock, tab the card again. To end your trip, lock the car and send an SMS to Smove to end your booking.

Tab EZLink card to unlock and lock

(Image taken from smove.sg)

So far they have their locations mainly at the south-western side of Singapore but I was told that they will expand so we look forward to that.