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BLUESG poised to be bought over by Goldbell?


StreetFight3r
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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.

BT_20170928_SEBLUEBOX_3105730.jpg

Edited by StreetFight3r
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I hope blueSg will toh... So that my mscp can bloody get back the four first floor mscp lots. 

Why don't they make the f**king electric car charging lots on the top floor? See how many people will adopt? Abcxyz.

Inconveniencing residents who pay parking fees. 

Yes I do realise that blueSg probably pays hdb as well. At least I hope they do... Or else Im even more irked. 

Edited by Lala81
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21 minutes ago, Lala81 said:

I hope blueSg will toh... So that my mscp can bloody get back the four first floor mscp lots. 

Why don't they make the f**king electric car charging lots on the top floor? See how many people will adopt? Abcxyz.

Inconveniencing residents who pay parking fees. 

Yes I do realise that blueSg probably pays hdb as well. At least I hope they do... Or else Im even more irked. 

For yew tee car sharing is on 4th floor. Probably u r right that the additional cost of running the cable charging port will increase the cost . Same theory for underground carpark. I heard it could be 3 to 4 times the cost of a carkpark tgat goes from ground zero upwards 

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12 hours ago, kobayashiGT said:

After goldbell bought over BlueSG, can get all the BlueSG driver to take a mandatory driving course for courtesy driving? 😁

Or expect to lose a lot of money when car crash and need to pay for repairs and cannot rent out when out of commission.

:D

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12 hours ago, kobayashiGT said:

After goldbell bought over BlueSG, can get all the BlueSG driver to take a mandatory driving course for courtesy driving? 😁

Still prefer them to change the small size cars to larger ones .... [:)]

Driver no courtesy, never mind. Just end video to TP. [sly]

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13 hours ago, StreetFight3r said:

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.

BT_20170928_SEBLUEBOX_3105730.jpg

These crap are worth 20-25 million? Ok, that's news to me. Maybe the Pininfarina designed badge is worth a lot 😁

I think its a bad move for Goldbell to take over this failed venture. Unless the charging network is also compatible with other private EVs, it might still make sense a few years down the road. Else, they are stuck with the depreciating BlueSG cars which are only compatible to a network of proprietary chargers that cannot be used with other EVs. Short of investing another few million to make the whole thing relevant again, it's just throwing good money after bad investment. 

One thing to be clear is, if SG wants to commit to the whole EV thing, you can be sure the likes of SP Group /ComfortDelgro etc will be here to monopolize things. In fact, SP already started with their network of chargers. Goldbell? Can go step one side unless your business model is build to also support charging for privately owned EVs. 

 

 

Edited by Lethalstrike
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11 minutes ago, Thaiyotakamli said:

Whats the speed limit of bluesg? 110? Should make it 70kmh lol

Many of these bluesg cars driven 2F2F. Shld up their speed limit to 200kmh. No horse run sia

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I think Goldbell is after the charging networks of the BlueSg which is worth far more than the cars and business model (which makes no sense to me) mainly because the cars are constrained to fixed and limited charging locations for drop off and pickup.

To make things worse, the size of the car limits what u can do with it and they provide no meaningful cost advantage over a regular PHV or taxi.

 

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2 hours ago, Thaiyotakamli said:

Whats the speed limit of bluesg? 110? Should make it 70kmh lol

Top speed is 110km/h.. coz 67 horsepower nia 😂

Edited by Ceecookie
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3 hours ago, Lethalstrike said:

These crap are worth 20-25 million? Ok, that's news to me. Maybe the Pininfarina designed badge is worth a lot 😁

I think its a bad move for Goldbell to take over this failed venture. Unless the charging network is also compatible with other private EVs, it might still make sense a few years down the road. Else, they are stuck with the depreciating BlueSG cars which are only compatible to a network of proprietary chargers that cannot be used with other EVs. Short of investing another few million to make the whole thing relevant again, it's just throwing good money after bad investment. 

One thing to be clear is, if SG wants to commit to the whole EV thing, you can be sure the likes of SP Group /ComfortDelgro etc will be here to monopolize things. In fact, SP already started with their network of chargers. Goldbell? Can go step one side unless your business model is build to also support charging for privately owned EVs. 

 

 

From LTA's latest car population stats, there are 677 bluecar registered as of Dec 2020. The OMV is around 33k, so multiply by 677 will give u a total figure of 22 mil.

I believe original value of the vehicle is 100k each (COE + ARF +Custom duties and OMV), so Goldbell is getting quite a good deal considering the vehs are max 3 years old only. Whether they can sustain the new rental business model, is another question. 

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The high overhead of the setting up and maintaining charging infrastructure probably kills BlueSG.

Assuming $25 million, 7 years of COE left for the fleet of 677 cars, each car needs to generate a minimum revenue of $15 per day approximately to break even.

If manpower, electricity, car park lot and office rental, road tax, car maintenance, insurance and software maintenance are factored in, it is probably another $15 per day rental to break even.

So it is probably around $30 revenue per car per day to survive.  I think BlueSG miscalculated the set up costs and Goldbell gets them for free. 

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1 hour ago, Ceecookie said:

From LTA's latest car population stats, there are 677 bluecar registered as of Dec 2020. The OMV is around 33k, so multiply by 677 will give u a total figure of 22 mil.

I believe original value of the vehicle is 100k each (COE + ARF +Custom duties and OMV), so Goldbell is getting quite a good deal considering the vehs are max 3 years old only. Whether they can sustain the new rental business model, is another question. 

Thanks for the info. 

I don't think the upkeep for the maintenance of the fleet is going to be cheap, even if they already got the discount upfront off the original value including COE and taxes. Unless they can raise profits from their rental model, that means increasing their price per use, it's quite obvious where this deal is heading towards. 

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