Don’t buy a car, share a car

Locomute Green Economy Modelling

hat started as a final-year MBA project for Ntando Kubheka and Tumisang Marope has turned into a multimillion-rand business. Locomute, a revolutionary car-sharing-rental agency hires out cars for minutes and hours, or, on the other side of the scale, for much longer — up to three months.

“After receiving positive feedback from lecturers, fellow classmates and industry players, we then took a decision to formally take the business to market,” Marope said in an interview earlier in the year.

They launched in June 2015 and in just one year their fleet of cars has grown from just six to 300. The cars in question are always and only the Fiat 500. The snappy Italian cars don’t just look cute — apparently they are also not high on the hijack list.

Catering to urban c o mmut e r s , c a r s a r e parked on the streets of the business hubs of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town. There are plans to expand to university cities like Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth, East London and Stellenbosch by the end of 2016.

“Customers download the Locomute app,” says Ntando Kubheka, fellow founder. “They then use the app to locate and unlock the car. When they’ve finished driving the car, they can leave it at their end destination, lock the car and log it’s location through the app.”

Locomute charges R1.80 a minute and R3 per kilometre, if you hire a car for up to four hours, and the first 20km travelled every hour is free. In addition, if you’re using the car-share option, you also don’t pay for petrol, insurance, e-tolls or parking costs.

According to Kubheka, Locomute has 15 000 registered members; each member pays a once-off joining fee of R199.

Beyond the immediate congestion and cost savings of car sharing, Kubheka says that research indicates that for every car shared, 30 people won’t buy a car, t hereby negatively impact on carbon emissions.