Earth Equity News

Paris Announces December '09 Rollout for Help-Yourself Electric Car System. By Angelique Chrisafis, London Guardian, June 22, 2008. "First came self-service bicycles, and now Paris is launching a green scheme to provide electric cars that drivers can pick up and drop off anywhere in the city. The Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, announced Thursday that [by] the end of next year, 4,000 electric cars will be placed around Paris and its outskirts for drivers in the scheme to help themselves for short journeys. It is the first electric car project of its kind in a capital city... He has doubled the projected cars from 2,000 to 4,000 and expanded the target area beyond Paris's ring road. In less than a year, Paris's army of cheap, on-street hire-bicycles called Velib' has transformed transport habits and bike awareness. The fleet of carbon-neutral hire-cars called Autolib is the mayor's next phase in green transport. Paris city hall said 700 Autolib pick-up points would be set up across the Paris area, 200 of which will be underground. A driver could pick up a car, for example, in the east of the city and drop it off in the west after a short journey. It would operate similar to the Vélib' bike scheme. Users would either take out an annual subscription or be able to approach a hire-point on the spur of the moment or perhaps pay by using their public transport pass... Electric car-recharging points would be scattered across the city."