Congestion is a real problem plaguing some of Asia’s largest megacities. And while there are many reasons for the steady rise of the continent’s congested cities, one of the biggest contributors is the prevalence of ‘one person-one car’ attitudes. Singapore-based peer-to-peer car-sharing company Drive lah is determined to change this mindset.
Speaking to Auto Futures, Drive lah’s co-founder, Gaurav Singhal, says that sharing needs to be made as easy, hassle-free, and as delightful as possible for users to not feel like they’re missing out on any aspect of car ownership.
L-R: Drive lah co-founders Gaurav Singhal and Dirk-Jan ter Horst
“In Singapore, like many other Asian markets, cars are pretty expensive. The cost of a vehicle is significantly higher than a person’s disposable income but, despite this, 95% of the time, cars are just sitting idle,” said Singhal.
“My co-founder, Dirk-Jan ter Horst, and I thought that there could be a better way of using this idle capacity around us. If you think a little deeper, this whole one-person, one-car mentality is just not sustainable for cities. Cities grow but the land area can’t, which causes issues in parking and congestion. And to top that, the car rental experience is significantly poor.”
When Drive lah was founded in 2019, Asia was still taking baby steps in the direction of a sharing economy,” said Singhal. “In the West, however, it was a completely different story. Companies that leveraged the concept of sharing had been doing really well. Take Airbnb, for example. This realisation was the final trigger. We were certain that there is definitely space for this kind of idea and that’s where we started working on it. Of course, there were a lot of legal, regulatory, and insurance-level challenges that we had to overcome to launch Singapore, but the customer response was absolutely overwhelming.”
Drive lah has a simple but ingenious way of allowing car owners to monetise their idle vehicles.
The story begins with the car owners or hosts as Drive lah calls them, listing their cars on the platform. Following a quick chat with the company’s onboarding team, hosts are then invited to install the company’s proprietary keyless access technology in the car, which means that they don’t have to worry about physically handing over their cars every time that it is rented out.
Once the keyless entry system is in place, bookings begin to arrive from their very own neighbourhood. Once the booking is confirmed, guests collect the car and unlock it from their phones. At the end of their trip, the payment is credited straight to the host’s bank account.
According to Singhal, trust plays a very important role in the model. And to build that trust in the platform, there is a two-way review system, where hosts can review guests and vice versa.
However, this doesn’t build trust alone – it has also helped to build a sense of community among all of Drive lah’s users. However, should something go wrong, Drive lah has your back. For the duration of the trip, the car is insured by Drive lah in partnership with companies such as Tokio Marine and NTUC, which means that the host’s own insurance and no-claims discount remain unaffected.
“There are many benefits,” says Singhal. “It’s a financially smart decision to monetise your asset – and our hosts are doing just that. “But we hear a lot of conversations around climate change and many people want to be a part of something that creates an impact. If your car can help take 10 cars off the road, then that is a significant personal contribution to this cause.
drive lah app screenshots
“On the other hand, if we were to look at this from the guests’ perspective, they get access to clean, personal, and very well-maintained cars, much unlike your typical rental car,” continued Singhal. “Our average review out of five for all the trips that we’ve done is 4.9, so the overall experience has been fantastic, both for our hosts and guests. And finally, through Drive lah, you meet new people, get to know them, and make great friends. You become a part of the community.”
Drive lah is the only peer-to-peer car-sharing company in Singapore, with an exclusive licence from Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA). In fact, the company works very closely with the LTA and Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industries, both of whom have helped Drive lah get off the ground to tackle the problem of congestion.
However, the company was keen on expanding to new markets, and, following a $3 million investment in July last year, it expanded its presence to Australia, where it goes by the name Drive mate.
“There are a couple of strategic priorities that we have,” said Singhal. “The first is to continue growing our business in Singapore because it’s our home market and ensuring that we reach certain milestones and grow to more cars and more users in Singapore.
“The second is, of course, expanding to newer markets. Australia is our current priority in terms of geographic expansion. Finally, we are also experimenting with a few adjacent revenue streams around InsureTech and insurance on cars, which you will hear about soon,” said Singhal, cryptically.
“Those are some of the things that we are deploying our funds for. On the backend, we’re also very focused on building our team. We are a tech-based company and we’re very keen on getting solid tech talent onboard.”
Read more on car-sharing: Suddenly the Whole Industry Says It’s Sustainable, I Don’t Believe It – Lynk & Co CEO Alain Visser
Expanding on what it’s been like for the company in Australia, Singhal added:
“These are still very early days for us in Australia. The car rental market is five times bigger in comparison to Singapore, so it’s definitely a very attractive opportunity. There are quite a few peer-to-peer car-sharing companies already active in Australia, but we’re differentiating in three main areas.
“First is our in-car technology, which comprises keyless access, telematics data, remote immobilisation, and a lot of other features that none of our competitors have. But it’s not just about having these technologies that make us stand out, it’s also the fact that we have solid experience in deploying them. Second is our focus on providing a user-centric experience and the community concept that we’ve built. Finally, given the way our pricing works, we are more affordable than other players for customers. All of this – the technology, experience, and affordability – make us a lot more attractive for both car owners and renters.”
However, Drive lah’s plans go far beyond Australia and Singapore.
“We want to be the biggest car-sharing player in Asia-Pacific in the next few years,” said Singhal. “This, quite obviously, would come from geographic expansion, so we are looking at expanding to a few more geographies next year. Right now, the focus is on Australia, but, that said, we are also looking at some other markets in this region such as Malaysia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, which look like very promising markets for our kind of business.
“Also, we want to look at some of the spaces around car-sharing, with cars being the focal point. Behaviour-based insurance is one great example of this. We’re already using technology to collect a lot of data for cars, and hence it would make a lot of sense to use this data more effectively, of course within the bounds of the PDPA (Personal Data Protection Act). There’s a lot you can do to optimise experiences for people, both for car owners and renters. That’s something that we are also working on and which will be a big one for us in the future.”
Keyword: Drive lah: Taking Cars off the Road, One at a Time