Paris: E-Car Scheme to Tackle City's Permanent Congestion

[phantom power]

Autolib is the proposed name, after the Parisian bike-sharing project that began three years ago, Vélib. A total of 3,000 electric cars will be made available, distributed among over 700 stations in the city. Autolib is due to enter a test phase in June 2011, and Delanoë wants the scheme to be fully operational from September. Paris isn't doing things by halves, says a spokesman for the city: "We want to make it a big success."

An Autolib subscription will cost €15 ($20) a month, plus an additional €5 ($7) for every half hour that a car is used. The prices sound affordable, but the killer argument for users could prove to be the guaranteed parking. Autolib customers will never have to drive around the block again -- a parking space will already be reserved for them at the depot nearest to their destination.

...

Would something like that be doable in Germany? Probably not. First of all, there isn't a German city whose traffic problems are comparable to those of Paris, so the situation is not quite so urgent. Secondly, the country, as is its wont, would probably insist on a private-sector solution, while in France it is more usual to draw upon massive state funds. Each charging station alone will be subsidized with up to €50,000.

A business model doomed to lose money? It depends how you do the sums. A car-sharing vehicle replaces, as a rule of thumb, 15 cars. So the Autolib fleet represents the equivalent of 45,000 private cars. The upkeep of a vehicle in Paris costs €7,000 a year, says Deputy Mayor Annick Lepetit. That means Autolib could save Parisians up to €315 million a year. In addition, there would be less road damage, less pollution and fewer traffic accidents, as in the medium term tens of thousands of cars would disappear from the streets.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,721368,00.html

[liberal N proud]

1. I guess if a car isn't available, grab a bike

Or visa-versa.

The bike rentals seem to go over quite well in Paris even though they are ugly bikes.

[frazzled]

2. Like Zip Cars or I-Go here, but electric

I don't know how well this will work. I know people who use Zip cars, but they are city-dwellers who don't own cars in the first place. It's great for when you need to do that weekend errand. But I wonder if thousands of Parisians who already own cars are really going to give them up. It could actually mean more cars on the city's streets, in an odd way. Good luck on this, Paris.

[Terry in Austin]

3. Austin Car2Go pilot

There's a http://www.car2go.com/austin/en/concept/idea">similar project being piloted here by Diamler-Chrysler. Several hundred SmartCars are scattered around the city, cost about $13 an hour. No monthly membership, just a registration fee. There are quite a few reserved parking areas for them, but you can also leave them in any legal parking space (for free) and walk away.

I've used them on errands for work, and the scheme has worked out fine so far, for me, anyway. It'll be interesting to see how well the model takes hold.

Getting Texans out of their own cars has such a "when they pry the steering wheel from my cold dead fingers" thing to it!