http://moneyweek.com/london-electric-cars-green-transport-trend/ London’s electric ‘love-mobiles’ are a transport trend you can’t ignore By: John Stepek 11/06/2015
[image / © Getty Images http://moneyweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/150611-electric-cars.jpg Electric cars in Paris London is to get electric cars in a scheme similar to the one already operating in Paris ] London is to get a new fleet of electric cars. It’ll be a pay-as-you-go scheme, that works a bit like the ‘Boris bikes’ – you hop in at one charging point and drop it off at another. There’s already a similar scheme in the French capital. A spokesman for Bollore, the company behind it, who will also run the London scheme, enthused: “Lots of people aged 18 to 25 are using the cars to go out for the evening… They might use them to go to a nightclub, dinner or the theatre. Some make love in the cars. They use them like a hotel. You can use them for anything.” Frankly, he’s not selling it to me. That sort of malarkey might go down well in Paris, but I don’t want to have to carry a bottle of Domestos around with me any time I fancy nipping from point to point. But it does show that electric cars are becoming ever more mainstream… What people want from electric cars – convenience Plans for London’s new electric car scheme comes as concerns about the city’s air quality are spiking. Meanwhile, Zac Goldsmith, Tory aristo-environmentalist and London mayoral hopeful, is calling for all new cabs and delivery vans to be electric-powered. We’re reaching a tipping point. But I don’t think it’s about anything as abstract as ‘the environment’. I think it has a lot more to do with the proliferation of smartphones and online interaction. People increasingly want their physical lives to resemble their digital ones. Clean. Convenient. Nicely designed. User-friendly. Unencumbered. Imagine a future where you don’t need to own and store a car. You walk out of your front door, you hail one on your phone, it arrives instantly and takes you where you want to go by the most direct route, avoiding roadworks. You get out and it drives away. You don’t have to think about parking or designated drivers or MOTs or insurance or anything else. Who wouldn’t want that? This is not science fiction. We’ve got electric cars. We’ve got driverless cars. There are legal, regulatory, social and logistical obstacles. But as far as the technology goes, this is do-able. It’s just a matter of getting to a point where electric vehicles make more sense for mass consumers than petrol cars. And there’s one key piece of the puzzle that really needs to be filled in for that to happen. [© MoneyWeek 2015] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3118744/London-s-new-electric-Boris-cars-passion-wagons-young-people-make-love.html Shocking! Electric car boss predicts London's new 'Boris cars' will be highly-charged passion wagons where young people will 'make love' after a night out By Ray Massey for MailOnline 10 June 2015 [image http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/06/10/20/29844B1E00000578-3118744-image-a-1_1433966378346.jpg Big reveal: Vincent Bollore, CEO of investment group Bollore, the French firm behind London's 'Boris Cars' ] - Fleet of some 50 electric vehicles will be introduced to London by 2016 - Part of £100m revolution to turn city into the world's 'green driving' capital - Scheme has been dubbed 'Boris Cars' after the pay-as-you-ride bicycles - Plug-in battery cars will be place for youths to 'make love', boss predicted A new fleet of electric cars will become highly-charged passion wagons when they are introduced to London, according to the French car boss behind the scheme. The vehicles, which will by launched by next year, will be an ideal place in which to 'make love' and be used just like 'a hotel' by amorous young drivers, he predicted. The new plug-in battery powered hire cars are part of a £100 million electric car revolution to turn London into the 'green driving' capital of the world and clean up its dangerously polluted air. The fleet of roughly 50 cars, each with a range of up to 150 miles, will be available to rent for approximately £5 per half hour. But as well as helping save the planet, they might also be adding a bit of fruity French frolic and 'ooh la la' to the motoring habits of British drivers. The scheme has been dubbed 'Boris Cars' after the pay-as-you-ride scheme to hire bicycles across the capital. The ambitious plans involve a massive overhaul of the capital's network of notoriously unreliable charging points and the start of a city-wide electric car sharing service by early next year. If successful, other cities are set to follow. Responsibility for transforming the use of electric cars in London has been given to French firm Bolloré, which four years ago launched the successful Autolib scheme in Paris that is now used by 220,000 drivers. Julien Varin, spokesman for Bolloré's green technology arm BlueSolutions, said he expected the scheme to prove popular with young Londoners who struggle to afford a car. He told the London Evening Standard: 'Lots of people aged 18 to 25 are using the cars to go out for the evening with their friends. They might use them to go to a nightclub, dinner or the theatre. They might use them to go to a nightclub, dinner or the theatre. Some make love in the cars. They use them like a hotel. You can use them for anything : Julien Varin, spokesman for Bolloré's green technology arm BlueSolutions 'Some make love in the cars. They use them like a hotel. You can use them for anything.' He added: 'We are sure it will work in London and expect London to be bigger than Paris. 'It won't be quite the same as Paris as English people are different but we have four years' experience in Paris and that will help us.' Autolib is credited with taking an estimated 31,000 petrol or diesel cars off the streets of Paris as drivers jumped in and out of the electric hire cars. A right-hand-drive version of the Autolib cars painted in 'double-decker bus red' will be revealed in central London on Friday by Vincent Bolloré, the operator's chairman and chief executive. He will announce ambitions to have 6,000 charging points across London and as many as 3,000 battery-powered cars on the roads here by 2018. Currently there are just 1,400 places in which to charge-in electric cars in the 'Source London' network which Boris Johnson set up in 2011. But up to 40 per cent are out of action at any time. Drivers will have to join the yet-unnamed scheme for an annual subscription, likely to be about £100 a year. The cars can be driven from point to point and do not have to be returned to the space where they were picked up. Christophe Arnaud, director of Bluepoint London, the Bolloré subsidiary running the charging point network, said he hoped the scheme would become known as 'Boris Cars' because 'if this happens we know we have the authorities officially behind us'. Mr Arnaud said one of the biggest obstacles in London was securing access deals with all the 27 town halls involved in the Source London network. So far five have been signed — with Kensington and Chelsea, Greenwich, Hackney, Southwark and Sutton — but it is hoped 15 will be on board by the year's end. The shocked RAC was rather taken aback by the suggestion that the cars will be used to 'make love' and declined to comment. He said: 'Like fluffy dice, sex in cars is probably one area the Foundation is not going to comment on!' The news comes as Tory MP Zac Goldsmith, who on Tuesday took the first step to a mayoral bid, said it was 'extraordinary' that there are not more electric vehicles on the capital's streets and called for all new minicabs and delivery vans to be electric-powered. In the Commons Richmond Park Mr Goldsmith called for a 'revolution in electric car ownership'. [© dailymail.co.uk] For EVLN posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ http://www.netimperative.com/2015/06/baidu-to-launch-self-driving-car-this-year/ Video streaming platform Letv.cn plans an electric vehicle http://www.montereyherald.com/technology/20150610/monterey-installs-more-electric-vehicle-charging-stations Four L2 & two L1 additional EVSE in Monterey-CA + EVLN: Used plugin resale values> NADA list of best to worst {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Fifty-Bollore-fr-Love-EVs-for-London-uk-cheaper-than-hotel-tp4676345.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
