Electric Car Sharing Service In Paris Gains Popularity

04:58

December 10, 2015

One Autobib charging station is outside the renowned Sorbonne University in Paris. It’s a good location for such cars, since 60 percent of Autolib customers are under 35 years old. (Dan Grossman)

Didier Marginedes, senior vice president of Blue Solutions, enthuses over the city of the future with bountiful Blue Solutions cars awaiting customers, electric Blue Solutions shuttle buses and neighborhood electric networks connected to individually owned solar-powered Blue Solutions batteries. (Dan Grossman) — Didier Marginedes, senior vice president of Blue Solutions, enthuses over the city of the future with Blue Solutions cars awaiting customers, electric Blue Solutions shuttle buses and neighborhood electric networks connected to individually-owned solar-powered Blue Solutions batteries. (Dan Grossman)

Some of the 50,000 people attending the Paris climate conference arrive at their meetings by an environmentally-friendly car sharing service called Autolib that started up in city four years ago.

Autolib members rent electric cars for about 20 cents per minute. And, unlike most car sharing programs in the U.S., members don’t have to return a car to the place where they picked it up. They can leave it at one of 4,000 reserved parking spots spread out all over Paris.

Industry analysts say the service and others like it might soon be available in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. From Paris, Dan Grossman brought us this report.

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Reporter

Daniel Grossman, science journalist focussed on climate change. He tweets @grossmanmedia.

This segment aired on December 10, 2015.