Revolution in public transport - You can rent electric car in Paris

In order to change customs of the French, who are tied to their personal cars, and support citizens to buy electric vehicles, in late 2011, in Paris, service electricity-driven cars were introduced. Today, the Parisians and visitors of the French capital have at their disposal 1.740 vehicles with some 5.000 charging spots i.e. parking spaces for these cars.

A group of six journalists who went on a Study trip to France in early June, organized by the French Embassy in Belgrade, saw practical aspect of electricity-driven cars in Paris.

These electric cars are easily managed and they do not generate noise and influence pollution in the city.

We found out from Christophe Aglietta, in charge of the presentation of this system in Autolib Metropolite that this environmental public car fleet Autolib was introduced based on the Velib rent-a- bike which has remarkable results in Paris.

- The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, saw how Velib achieved great success so he decided to develop this project with cars through public-private-partnership. Vehicles are rented in the same way as bikes.Subscribers take them at stations and after usage they return it to any of the station - Aglietta explained.

There are four subscription types for renting Autolib – daily, weekly, monthly and annual. One should set aside EUR 144 for annual subscription, EUR 12 for monthly while half an hour drive totals EUR 5.

- If a citizen uses his car 2-3 times a week, he spends EUR 5-6 thousand per year and EUR 500 by using this car - Christophe Aglietta is speaking about remuneration of renting the electric car.

Bollore invested in small, grey cars called Bluecar and Italian plant, Pininfarina produced them.

- Bollore Group invested EUR 60-70 mil in this project. They are hoping that by2016, they can reach zero level- our collocutor said.

French Bluecar is special because it is completely electricity-driven and has lithium-metal-polymer (LMP) new generation battery, with capacity theoretically five times the competitors’.It can reach a maximum speed of 130 km/h and it can travel 250 km with a battery in city drive and 150 km outside the city.

- You can manage the car easily. People who have just obtained a driving license can drive Autolib On the other hand, rent-a-car agencies look for two years of driving experience.

As we found out, the objective of renting this kind of vehicles is not to replace public transport completely so majority of people do not use them to get to work but to go out for a dinner, to visit friends, after work, etc.

According to researches regularly carried out in Paris, Autolib is mostly used by citizens aged 30 to 45, more men than women.

A car is charged six hours when it is totally empty and clients put it on charging. If a client does not return it to the place for charging, card will charge time as if it is being driven.

As we found out, other French towns will also get Autolib - the Bollore the company signed the contract with Lion so that installation should start in October this year. Then, Bordeaux should follow. When it comes to Paris, the plan is to increase the number of cars to 3.000 and charging stations to 6.600.

In Serbia, so far, there have not been ideas for electric cars renting but it has been planned to install chargers for that kind of charging. Some producers expect mass sales of chargers in the next five years when, they believe, electric cars will become a common thing on Serbian streets.

Suzana Obradovic