More Bolt cars to get virus screens
Ride-hailing company Bolt aims to use some of its new investment to equip more of its vehicles with physical protection barriers to reduce the spread of coronavirus and to grow new segments such as online food delivery, says Bolt SA country manager Gareth Taylor. The company previously known as Taxify received a €100m (almost R2bn) investment from global investment manager Naya Capital Management in May.
Ride-hailing company Bolt aims to use some of its new investment to equip more of its vehicles with physical protection barriers to reduce the spread of coronavirus and to grow new segments such as online food delivery, says Bolt SA country manager Gareth Taylor.
The company previously known as Taxify received a €100m (almost R2bn) investment from global investment manager Naya Capital Management in May.
Bolt and its competitors such as Uber have come under pressure due to social-distancing regulations that have caused more people to work from home. Due to lockdown rules, now at level 3, drivers can carry only half of the normal number of passengers per ride.
Five-seater sedans may carry two passengers, while sevenseater vehicles may carry three passengers.
Bolt hopes the new investment will help it to grow in other areas and offset these losses.
Without giving exact details on how the funds would be apportioned between Bolt’s operations, Taylor said in an interview with Business Day that as the largest country market in Africa and one of Bolt ’ s top markets globally SA is likely to receive a significant portion of the investment.
Operating in about 150 cities across Europe and Africa, the
Estonia-based company says more than half its business worldwide comes from seven African markets: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and SA.
In SA, Bolt operates in 34 towns and cities, with more than 10,000 drivers using the platform to operate their businesses. When the lockdown began in March, the company launched its Bolt Isolated Car service, with an initial 500 vehicles that had plastic screens installed to stop the movement of air droplets between passengers and drivers.
Taylor said increased demand for this service, particularly among health-care and other essential-service workers, caused the company to increase the number of cars equipped with it to 3,000 by end-May.
On Wednesday, Bolt said it was adding 4,000 vehicles to this list in anticipation of increased demand with the country’s move to level 3 of the national lockdown this week.
Bolt is the only ride-hailing service to offer this extra protection in the local market. Taylor said that after Bolt initially installed the screens free of charge for top-performing drivers the company had now moved to a subsidised model in which drivers pay R100 to have the protective sheets installed.
He said that, given the health concern, drivers who installed the screens could increase their revenue by up to 50% since customers wanted to feel safe on trips and typically took longer trips in such vehicles. Drivers could therefore easily recover the money spent on the plastic screens, he said.
Bolt had recently launched tuk-tuk and van options to its ride-sharing business in Johannesburg.
In Cape Town, the company introduced an online food delivery unit, Bolt Food, with plans for rolling it out in Johannesburg soon, said Taylor.
Due to the rise in e-commerce during the lockdown period, Taylor said his company had expanded to offer deliveries for businesses that needed to deliver directly to customers but lacked their own drivers. Businesses paid about R30 a delivery in an 8km radius.
There were plans to have electric vehicles on the platform, said Taylor. This was part of the rationale for the company rebranding from Taxify to Bolt.
It will probably depend on the take-up of electric vehicles in the local market, given the high taxes on such vehicles and the country ’ s inadequate charging network.
BOLT AND ITS COMPETITORS SUCH AS UBER HAVE COME UNDER PRESSURE DUE TO THE COVID-19 SOCIAL-DISTANCING REGULATIONS