Paris Launches World's First Electric Car Share Program

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday Paris took a big step towards clean transportation as it launched the world's first electric car share program. Created by Vincent Bollore, the Autolib electric car-share is modeled off the city's popular bike share system, and it will be the largest program of its kind in the world. By December the program will include 250 electric vehicles, and it's planned to expand in 2012 if the first leg of the project is successful."

Comments

Amsterdam did that

[Anonymous Coward]

Amsterdam 1974:

The sharecar named "Witkar" small electric car , A'dam been there done that and got the T shirt..back in 1974

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witkar

Re:Amsterdam did that

[rvw]

Amsterdam 1974:

The sharecar named "Witkar" small electric car , A'dam been there done that and got the T shirt..back in 1974

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witkar

Amsterdam did that, and the "witte fietsen" (white bikes) as well, and both failed. Last summer I was in Paris, and the Velib (the bike rental system) worked really well. You rent a bike for less than 2 euros a day (less if you take a subscription). If you take a bike, you can use it for half an hour for free, then you pay one euro, and the rate per half hour goes up to 4 euros. That seems absurd, but the goal is that people put the bikes back in half an hour, as that is probably enough for 90% of the rides. Plus it keeps the system alive.

I really enjoyed it, and it gave me a chance to view the city in another way. And no stupid helmets like in the US.

I hope this system will work for cars as well, electric or not. And then they should import it in Amsterdam.

Re:Amsterdam did that

[Malc]

London uses the same charging scheme (access fee + rising rental rate starting with a free first 30 mins). It encourages churn and availability, and if you want a bike for longer, then there are real rental companies.

The lack of helmets is daft, and TfL encourages people to where one. The system wouldn't work in a casual or convenient way if helmets were required, which rather defeats the purpose of the scheme. I wear one when I'm on my own bike. I guess the rental bikes (from Montreal no less) are not designed to go very quickly anyway. Take your own life in to your own hands... funny though that the US would be more of a nanny state in this regard.

The rental car thing sounds like it must come with a whole load of other issues. I need to read about it: how do they cope with liability and insurance. Even a slow moving car can cause a lot of damage to people and its surroundings.

The first was: the witkar in Amsterdam

[Frans Faase]

The first was the Witkar in Amsterdam more than 35 years ago.

A big step towards clean transportation

[Yev000]

I wash my M3 every week!

Could make sense

[l2718]

For short in-city trips electric vehicles are fairly efficient (especially with regenerative breaking). Moreover, these vehicles will have established parking spots where they can be efficiently charged. I can see this being a cost-effective alternative to taxis, and possibly to public transport (especially for several people at once). The question is what to do about them if they are driven until the battery is drained, which is not an issue for bicycles. If that becomes prevalent it will increase costs.

Re:Could make sense

[dolmen.fr]

The question is what to do about them if they are driven until the battery is drained, which is not an issue for bicycles. If that becomes prevalent it will increase costs.

The payment system is an incentive to put back the car for use for someone else: if the driver want to reduce his costs, he has to use the car only for short rides and park the car in a station instead of keeping it for himself and continuing to pay.
And as the car station is the recharging station, the more often the car goes to a station the more time it spends recharging.

World's first electric car share program

[makubesu]

also, largest of its kind! One with the most features! Most customers! Most attractive customers! Shiniest cars! Only one that doesn't poison all of its clients! Least deadly of all of them! Most vacuously true of all of them!
The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club!

Re:World's first electric car share program

[Yvanhoe]

Hint from a former Parisian : When Paris claims to be the first to do something, it means they copied from another town but put it to a larger scale. So they claim to be the first (of this scale) to pretend to be the ones who came up with the idea.

Yeah, this could work.

[Cyno01]

With reserved spots, the infrastructure for charging becomes simpler for this sort of thing. My sister lives in Chicago, she doesnt own a car and bikes most places, but for things like bulk grocery buying and other shopping, that sorta thing, she has a zip car membership. If the charging stations are prevalent enough, i could see zipcar going electric. And after a minute of research it seems theyre already testing it in san francisco with plug in hybrids.

Re:Once again... follow the money...

[DennisZeMenace]

The man behind this project is Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of Paris, who is a socialist...

Re:Aha! The French! I know that one.

[Eunuchswear]

Probably the car is made with a small part, say, the left indicator light cover, that is French, so to the French, this car is French: a great victory for the republic! Vive la France! Vive la voiture Francais! (sounds of Marseillaise in the background)...

Why is this probable?

You do know France has quite a large car and truck industry?

(Although this case is a bit odd - The "Blue Car" is made by a paper manufacturer, mostly as a demo of their battery technology).

Re:Shell game

[Eunuchswear]

Clean how so?

It actually is less efficient to generate power far away, send it over the wire and charge that car than it is for it to be self powered.

All this does is move the pollution out of the sight of the privileged elites in the city.

All in the name of the religion of environmentalism.

Paris is in France.

You know, the country where 80% of the electricity is generated by nuclear reactors.

Re:Aha! The French! I know that one.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

As Slashdot's only French poster on this site I'm really starting to get tired of all these stupid insults against our country! Every single day I try to cure you of your ignorance of history. For example, we didn't.... *sigh* Oh forget it.

I give up.