London Bluecars to put 3,000 Electric on Roads

News from the United Kingdom says that roughly 3,000 electric rental cars are expected to soon become part and parcel of the city of London’s fleet.

Information shared with the public says that, should things go according to plan, the first 100 such vehicles will hit streets sometime in next year’s March.

According to Business Green, they will all be Bluecars, i.e. small electric cars built by the Bolloré Group, a French investment and industrial holding group.

Provided that people take a liking to these environmentally friendly vehicles, the Bolloré Group plans to continue introducing more of them until the rental cars fleet reaches an overall count of 3,000.

The French group says that the chief idea behind this initiative is to make it possible for people either living in or visiting London to move about the city by renting its electric cars.

It further details that, in order to use one such vehicle, all folks would have to do would be to book it using smartcards and phones, and then take it for a spin between designated parking points.

The Bolloré Group estimates that, in order for it to break even, i.e. make just enough profits to cover the costs associated with implementing this initiative, its fleet of electric rental cars would have to attract 60,000 costumers.

These people would all have to pay a £10 (€11.97 / $16.61) monthly subscription and also part with £5 (€5.98 / $8.3) per hour hire charge, specialists working with the company detail.

Due to the fact that they can cover roughly 250 kilometers (about 155 miles) on a single charge, the Bolloré Group’s Bluecars are said to be very well suited to meet the demands of urban traffic.

In order to make sure that its fleet of electric rental cars will not lack access to the electricity it needs to keep up and running, one of the French group’s subsidiaries, i.e. IER, aims to invest £100 million (€119.76 million / $166.155 million) in setting up a total of 6,000 charge points by 2018.

Commenting on this initiative, Vincent Bolloré, the French billionaire entrepreneur behind Bolloré Group, told the press as follows:

“I believe that London could be the world’s most advanced sustainable transport city and our announcement today is another step on the path to this goal.”

“Electric car sharing has been tremendously popular in Paris and we believe it could be as equally successful in London, offering people a convenient and low-cost form of environmentally-friendly transport,” he went on to argue.