Electric vehicle car-sharing from mid-2017

A NATION-WIDE electric vehicle (EV) car-sharing programme will be launched in mid-2017, starting with 125 cars and 200 charging points initially.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) and the Economic Development Board (EDB) announced on Thursday the contract awarded to France's Bolloré Group, which will operate the programme for 10 years.

The EV car-sharing programme, called BlueSG, will eventually deploy 1,000 electric cars and install 2,000 charging points in the first four years.

There will also be 2,000 parking spaces set aside in every HDB town, the CBD and key industrial areas.

According to BlueSG, 80 per cent of the stations will be in HDB and residential areas, with 20 per cent of the points available for any EV.

A membership is required but what distinguishes BlueSG from other car-sharing schemes is that it will be a large-scale, one-way programme - users may return the car at their destination and not the original pick-up point.