Shared Use Mobility Company Inc (SUMO) launches car sharing 

A developer in South Surrey / White Rock BC is launching an all-electric car-share company that intends to make 2,000 shared vehicles available in White Rock and Surrey, British Columbia Canada.

The founder of the Shared Use Mobility Company Inc (SUMO) is real estate developer Raghbir Gurm is also the developer behind two multi-unit development proposals in White Rock (Maple and Russell and the Beachway). 

Gurm says they have already paid the deposit for 150 Hyundai IONIQ and KONA fully electric vehicles for a soft launch of the business, with plans to expand to 2,000 all-electric vehicles by the year 2022.

Gurm says they plan to have phase one of the project in place by October 2020, which would make SUMO the first all-electric car share company in Canada.

SUMO car sharing Surrey White Rock BC Canada
SUMO car-sharing service is coming to surrey & white rock BC Canada

The service will be first launched based on a round-trip model, with SUMO branded “multi-modal mobility” hubs where users can access shared vehicles, which at first will need to be returned to the original location. 
By 2022, the plan is to transition to a free-float model which will allow customers to pick up a vehicle at one location and drop it off at another.

“We will have one (hub) located in South Surrey/White Rock and we will have an operational hub located in Central Surrey area,” Gurm said. Gurm also says that a shared mobility service can only work if there is a sufficient number of vehicles to provide convenience for users. A person should have access to a shared vehicle within a five-minute walk from where they live. 

“In the whole of Surrey there are about 20 shared vehicles, and they’re all in Surrey central” says Gurm, “No one is going to rely on a shared vehicle and give up their car if there are just a half-dozen vehicles around the whole city,” he added.

“Statistics from Vancouver are that one shared vehicle gets used about 20 per cent of the time. If you use that 20 per cent figure with electric vehicles, each vehicle will end up saving four metric tonnes of greenhouse emissions per vehicle. The impact we could have on our air quality is just phenomenal.”
Tuesday, Gurm had a meeting with City of White Rock officials, and has already met with the City of Surrey staff. He described both meetings as positive.

EcoHome is excited to see EV car sharing coming to South Surrey / White Rock as this is an area currently out of range for Vancouver's Skytrain or other viable commuter options for Transit. To see other articles on Electric vehicles, see here, to discover which is the Best Home EV Charger, read The Definitive Guide to EVSE's here on EcoHome, North America's online sustainable green building resource.