Paris to Add Electric Cars to Rental Bikes

A new eco-friendly electric car hire program is set to roll out in Paris next year. Bertrand Delanoe, the mayor of the French capital, says that the new project, which they are calling Autolib’, may be introduced by September of next year. It’s the hope of city officials that the program will be more successful than the Vélib’ rental bike scheme, he added.

The Vélib’ program was launched in 2007 amid much fanfare and has fallen due to widespread vandalism. In only 2 years, over half of the 20,000 bicycles in the city have been damaged, and 7,800 of these are said to have been stolen.

The Autolib’ program will be the biggest electric vehicle sharing scheme in the world. It’s projected that 3,000 cars will be on the road and serviced to 1,000 docking and parking stations. There haven’t been any hire charges finalized yet, but city officials predict that hourly rates will be around €5, while there will also be a €15 monthly subscription fee.

A contract was submitted this month for Paris to operate the electric car scheme, which a joint private-public enterprise will manage. There are 4 bidders competing for the contract, including: Avis Car Rental, the RATP transit authority, national rail company SNCF, a consortium of car parking specialist Vinci with the transport and logistics company Bollorè, car and truck rental organization ADA, and public transport operator Veolia Transport Urbain.

The successful bidder will be revealed by a coalition of the 31 local authorities in Paris, who will participate in the program. The announcement is set to be in December.