After its successful bike-sharing program, Paris is moving into higher gear, preparing to lend out 3000 electric cars across the City of Light to fight air pollution.
City officials have chosen a bid by French billionaire entrepreneur Vincent Bollore to run Autolib, a new automobile-sharing program modelled on Paris’s successful, three-year-old bicycle-sharing program, Velib.
Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said overnight the service - which is to begin in the city and nearby suburbs by the end of next year - will make Paris the first major world city with a car-sharing program of its size.
Mr Delanoe called the plan “a revolution in efficiency that will improve our quality of life”.
Groupe Bollore, an industrial conglomerate, beat out two rival bidders after a yearlong selection process: a consortium of rental car giant Avis, Paris public transport authority RATP, national rail operator SNCF and Vinci Park, an operator of parking garages; and Veolia Transport Urbain - an international operator of public transport systems.
The four-seat “Bluecars” - so called for their colour - developed by Bollore are to be positioned at 1200 stations in metropolitan Paris and will be available around the clock. Users must have a valid driver’s licence and pay a subscription fee to borrow one of the vehicles.
Italian car designer Pininfarina worked with Bollore to develop the cars.
Tourists will be able to use the service as long as they have a driver’s licence recognised in France, meaning US and European visitors should have no problem signing up. The service will employ about 800 people, and will be financed by a 60-million-euro ($80.5 million) investment by Bollore.
City and regional authorities will pay to build the docking stations at a cost of 50,000 ($67,100) each.
An annual subscription will cost 12 euros ($16) per month, but daily and weekly options will also be available. A 250-euro ($335) security deposit will also be required.
The cars can be reserved in advance and returned to any station, similar to how Paris’s bike sharing program works.
A test phase of the program is scheduled for August and September, before the official startup in October.
Velib makes more than 20,000 bikes and nearly 1500 stations available around the city and nearby suburbs. Infrequent users can pay by credit card, while subscribers pay a yearly fee of 25 euros ($33.54) to gain access to the bikes.
