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Lion City Rental Is Now Renting Their Cars To The Public At ‘Super Attractive’ Rates

2018-10-26 , 1:25 pm

Are you looking to rent a car to drive around in Singapore? How about Lion City Rentals?

Oh, you don’t want to drive private-hire? Don’t worry because things have changed much for the much-vaunted car rental company.

Lion City Rental, No Longer Under Ride-Hailing Firms

When Uber was operating in Singapore, that was the golden heyday for Lion City Rental. As the car rental arm of Uber, they had no shortage of drivers looking to snap up their cars.

Fast forward to today and it’s a totally different story for the car rental arm of Uber.

Uber has left Singapore and Lion City Rental isn’t allowed to be sold to Grab, despite the initial plan for Grab to take over all of Uber assets in the market.

So where does this leave Lion City Rental?

Well, it leaves the firm in a place that’s going to make all aspiring drivers in Singapore very, very happy.

Lion City Rental Now Leasing Cars To The Public From $1,500 A Month

On 25 Oct, Lion City Rental announced that they’re going to lease their fleet of cars to the public (though, according to my colleague who often see their ads, they’ve been doing that since the Uber-Grab saga).

And their rates are allegedly extremely attractive:

Honda Vezel Hybrid: $65.30 per day ($1,959 per month)
Toyota Vios: $53.10 ($1,593 per month)

That’s like a $507 to $741 discount from the usual rates offered elsewhere.

Though you’ve got to admit, if you do your homework, that there are cheaper alternatives out there…just that those cheaper cars might be old cars (but seriously, who cares?).

To top it off, they offer flexible car rental periods as well.

You can choose to rent the car for:

A week
Three weeks
Three months
Six months

Plus, they have a loyalty programme for people who regularly rents from them.

In other words, they’ve just become yet another car rental company.

Lion City Rental is Here To Stay

Given the timing of events, people were wondering if the low rates and flexible periods of renting from them was a desperate response from the flagging car rental company.

Lion City Rental General Manager, Mr Pascal Ly, said it wasn’t because of that.

He explained that for the first time in Lion City Rental’s history, the company has a say in what they want to do.

Instead, they’re just “taking care of themselves” and “moving forward”.

They’re also looking to increase their 130-strong workforce.

In view of Go-Jek’s arrival in Singapore, Mr Ly said that there will be a huge demand for cars after the Indonesian ride-hailing firm arrive.

And what that time comes, he wants people to remember “Lion City Rental”.

Other Car Rental Firms Not Worried About Lion City Rental’s Move

Now, seeing the current situation, you’d have thought that existing car rental firms are going to get worried about a price war (on the magnitude of the Grab-Uber competition) coming to the car rental industry.

But they’re not.

Some firms do not believe that Lion City Rental will be able to sustain these prices for long, especially when the cars were brought when COE was at an all-time high.

Cartimes managing director Eddie Loo said, “Currently, COE prices are low, so we will be able to give (buyers) a better price.”

Experts also believed that this is simply an interim solution for Lion City Rental while they see how the ride-hailing industry in Singapore evolves.

But hey, no matter whether the attractive rental rates are here to stay or not, at least you can enjoy it for the next few months, eh?

Difference Between Renting for Private Hire and Personal Use

According to my colleague who has spoken to a car rental company, there are benefits to renting out to users who aren’t using it for private hire: the maintenance would be much cheaper, since the car is on the road much lesser.

However, the challenge is finding customers who rent long-term: most private users just rent for a week or so, so the marketing costs (to reach out to the mass) might be more than the maintenance cost.

So yay, it’s a chicken and egg issue.