Singapore to Get Honda ICVS
Honda will be launching a shared and eco-friendly urban transportation service in Singapore early next year. The service, known as the Intelligent Community Vehicle System (ICVS) has the support of the Singapore Eonomic Development Board and will have a trial period of three months.
“Our first year target is to utilise a fleet of 50 petrol/electric hybrid cars and to set up 3~6 exclusive ICVS ports (parking lots) which will be established within the Central Business District (CBD),” said Satoshi Toshida, Managing Director, Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
He added that Honda’s feasibility study had concluded that Singapore was an ideal environment for ICVS due to its compact land area; the government serious commitment to tackling transportation challenges in innovative ways; and the high quality of infrastructure and human resource skills available in the republic.
Mr Toshida also announced that it will work with Honda’s distributor in Singapore, Kah Motor Co. Sdn. Bhd, in the aspect of vehicle set-up and maintenance. “In the coming months,” Mr Toshida explained, “we will be attracting the attention of potential users, or members as they will be known, and undertaking research to identify the number of potential members and their regular travel patterns in and around the CBD. They will be able to get information on the official website we have set up.”
The ICVS service is designed to offer its members a flexible and relatively short-term vehicle rental, without the necessity of reservations, with a very affordable pricing structure based on annual fees and time/distance user charges. By obtaining maximum utilisation of the vehicles in the system, it is able to offer the lowest possible membership costs while, at the same time, reducing parking problems and their related environmental impact.
The ICVS concept was first introduced by Honda in 1994 and has undergone various tests both in Japan and also the USA. Between October 1998 and June last year, a public demonstration of ICVS was conducted at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan utilising four types of specially-developed ICVS vehicles.
From February to November 1999, Honda co-sponsored a mass transit station ICVS concept experiment called ‘Carlink’ with the University of California-Davis Institute of Transportation Studies using 12 natural gas-powered Honda Civics. And since March 1999 Honda has been co-sponsoring the IntelliShare programme, a free rent-and-return ICVS experiment with the University of California-Riverside using 15 Honda EV Plus electric vehicles.
The cars used for the ICVS in Singapore will be Civics which will be powered by Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) powerplant which is a combination of a small petrol engine and an electric motor. The first production model to use IMA was the Insight and because its exceptionally fuel-efficient and environment-friendly performance, Honda is going to use it for other models in coming years. IMA-equipped Civics are expected to be shown at the coming motorshow in Frankfurt in the near future.[More about IMA]
Honda ICVS Singapore Pte. Ltd. was established in Singapore in February this year as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. to undertake R&D activities for commercial introduction of the ICVS service in Singapore.
