projectevie
Jon Azrielant
Jeff Bladt
Matt Vance
andreafjeldFiled under: EV news, EVs of the World, Grassroots EV | Tags: EV, Paris, Vélib, electric vehicle, Autolib', Bertrand Delanoe, free cars, Electric Car
Freedom and cars, together at last.
(Matt Vance, reporting from Paris)
The French government is going one step further towards the abolition of private property, putting forth a plan that will allow Parisians to drive a zero-emissions electric car whenever they want, without ever having to buy one.
Yep, the city of Paris wants to do to electric cars what they did to bicycles in their rent-a-bike Vélib’ system. And, applying the same logic from one to the other, the program will be called Autolib’ – a clever portmanteau of liberté and automobile (just as Vélib is a contraction of liberté and vélo).
There have long been rumors of such an initiative, yet it became official last summer when an intergovernmental council was formed for Greater Paris to oversee the scheme’s implementation. (While the creation of intergovernmental councils in France is always a sure mark of a plan’s permanence, it also paradoxically signifies a plan’s delay of action – before the intergovernmental council was created, the scheduled launch date for Autolib’ was mid-2010, now it’s September 2011 and counting).
Once in operation, drivers will be able to pick up either a two-seat or a four-seat 100% electric car – without reservation – by merely swiping their credit card into a reader. Rates will likely be around $6-$9 per half-hour, and users can drop off their car at any rental location. Unlike the Vélib’ system however, which anybody can walk up to and use, those wishing to mosy around in an Autolib’ will need to register in advance with a valid driver’s license, and sign up for a monthly subscription fee between $22 and $29. Yep – it’s not quite as liberté as you might expect form the French.
The city’s plan calls for up to 700 Autolib’ stands to be built within Paris’ periphery – 500 curbside stations, and 200 in parking lots – and another 700 to be built in the city’s surrounding suburbs – making a total of around 4,000 all-electric Autolib’s in circulation.
An artist's rendering
There’s no news yet as to which electric car will staff the Autolib’ fleet. Daimler, Renault, and Peugot Citroen have all expressed interest in the project, yet there’s also the possibility that a new car will be specially-designed for the program. Obviously, there are certain major hurdles any car that’s used will have to overcome – vandalism, theft, long recharging times, durability among them.
While Paris’ Vélib’ system has been a massive success, it has also been a huge headache for JCDecaux – its parent company – to maintain, with thousands of bikes going missing, or being returned broken beyond repair ever year.
Ouch.
Of course it hasn’t helped matters that French privacy law dictates that a merchant cannot keep a customer’s credit card and personal information once a transaction is finished, making offenders rather hard to book.
Proponents of the Autolib’ initiative, Paris’ mayor Bertrand Delanoë perhaps the strongest among them, it being one of his campaign pledges, argue that the scheme will not only improve traffic congestion – as fewer people will own cars – but will reduce CO2 emissions by up to 22,000 tons a year. “It will revolutionize transport,” said Delanoë, revealing both his impassioned committment to Autolib’, as well as his natural French propensity for things revolutionary.
Yet in a move that almost seems uncanny, many French environmentalists – close political allies of Delanoë among them – are critical of Autolib’s green credentials. Autolib’, they argue, will increase traffic congestion, and might encourage people to go for drives “on a whim” that would otherwise not. “Encouraging the public to use any type of car instead of taking bikes or public transportation is a mistake,” according to Denis Baupin, a prominent Green Party leader, who prefers traditional rental schemes in which cars must be reserved ahead of time and returned to the same location.
Only time will tell whether the French can realize this ambitious feat of engineering, and if Autolib’ will end up like its kindred Vélib – with its kinks, but overall successful and enjoyed by many – or more like those automated rent-a-toilets you see on street corners – seemed like a good idea at the time…
First there was Vélib’, now Autolib’, and next… Sarkozy: “I’m going to launch PrimeMinister-lib’ – I can change mine whenever I want!”
Filed under: Grassroots EV | Tags: Paris, air pollution, Vélib, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, New Jersey Turnpike, bike messenger, congestion
Yesterday morning I did the most unhealthy, healthiest thing I’ve ever done. I cycled through a big city.
I had a meeting to see an apartment across town and decided that, instead of taking the metro, I’d try out Paris’ (in)famous Vélib system (basically a rent-a-bike plan, for a full explanation of the Vélib system, see below).
Getting on my bike, I felt quite chuffed with myself. I felt good about getting a bit of exercise, good about using zero-emissions transportation. These good feelings quickly evaporated though, as I hit the road, and was engulfed in exhaust fumes.
Yes, there’s nothing quite like breathing in petrochemicals for breakfast. Cycling alongside cars, standing behind tailpipes at stoplights, weaving in and out of traffic – I got my full fill of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. And boy, could I feel it. Now it would’ve been great if, while messing up my sinuses and harming my lungs, all these toxins at least got me a little buzzed, but they didn’t – they just gave me a headache, and a horribly scuzzy feeling, like I was breast-fed by the New Jersey Turnpike. I went home and feel asleep.
So there you go, I was trying to be healthy, I was trying to be eco-conscious, but all I ended up getting for it was being poisoned, and having a fitful of rage for gasoline-powered cars. Damn it’s hard to be green.
I’d like to challenge anyone who’s against electric cars, any of those folks who think an attack on gasoline cars is an attack on their manhood – Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or any of those right-wing bimbos who’re seeking eternal revenge for being born with only one nut. I’d like to challenge them to a water-boarding like test – give them a bike, a helmet, and put them in the middle of a congested city, and see how long they last before they start coughing, holding their breath, feeling woozy, and thinking that there might just be a better solution to getting around than burning oil.
Don't know what you got till it's gone
*****
Intended to reduce Paris’ congestion and pollution, the Vélib system – a compound of the French words vélo for bike, and liberté for freedom – is a network of bikes dotted all around the city that, for about $1.50, you can rent, ride around, and then drop off at any of the designated bike racks. And since there’s a bike rack about every two blocks (every 300 meters to be exact), you’ll seldom need worry about finding one.
Purple swarm of Vélib locations
However like most grand, French, government-run schemes, the Vélib system opened in 2007 to a great deal of fanfare and Gallic self-congratulation, proceeded to work perfectly for about two weeks, and since then has encountered a number of fundamental problems that the French government has been unwilling, underfunded, or simply incompetent in responding to.
On the most basic level, a failure to predict and correct for commuting patterns has caused an unequal distribution of bikes around the city, meaning that at certain times of the day riders either can’t find a free bike to use, or can’t find a free slot to return their bike to. Not exactly biking freedom!
What a rack
And in what may be a rare case of French optimism, but is more likely an example of the French’s inexhaustible propensity to willfully overlook their own character faults, a great many more bikes than *estimated* have been stolen, vandalized, or in other ways made inoperable. In the roughly 2 years since Vélib’s inception, 16,000 bikes have had to be replaced due to intentional misuse, with some being reportedly “hung from lamp posts, dumped in the River Seine, torched and broken into pieces.” Also partly to blame is a trend known as ‘Vélib Extreme’, whereby the cruiser-style bikes are taken and repeatedly used in heavy-duty BMX courses until they fall into broken bits. Another 8,000 have been outright stolen, with some bikes turning up in places as far afield as Eastern Europe and North Africa. Yes, it indeed seems that when they started up the Vélib system, the French somehow forget they’re a nation whose main national pastimes include rioting, burning cars, and all other kinds of civil unrest and disrespect of law.
Yet, perhaps all this bike vandalism and theft can be explained away as a French response to the fact that JCDecaux, the company the city of Paris commissioned to run the Vélib system, is an English company – i.e. the French destroy and steal all these bikes merely to get back at the English, and don’t realize that it’s in fact their tax dollars being spent replacing them. Sounds unmistakably like rational French thinking.
Filed under: EVs of the World | Tags: e-Solex, electric moped, electric scooter, Ferrari, Kosmob, Paris, Roman Polanski
I do love me a bit of Paris. But one of the things that really gets my goat here is all those bleeding scooters, mopeds and ‘mobilettes.’ It’s that awful sound that comes from them.
Just when you think you’ve found a nice, quiet, picturesque little Parisian side-street, one that’s too narrow for any car to feasibly fit, and you begin to feel that Paris might actually live up to the ideal you had of it, you’ll begin to hear some connard on a scooter approaching and then whizz past you with that throttling sound like a chainsaw. Well, I’d like to throttle them with a chainsaw.
Now I know every city is loud and dirty. Even idyllic old Paris. And I can handle all the cars, the beeps, the bumps, the honks, the busses, the nee-naws of the ambulances, and every other throbbing noise the mechanized engine assaults you with, but that rip-saw sound of a scooter just pushes me over the top. Makes me wanna do the opposite of everything civilization is. Luckily though, I’m no Hitler, and so the most I can muster to this effect is to let my dog piss on every moped and scooter he pleases.
Still, every time I hear one, I keep thinking – Wouldn’t it be so much more pleasant if all these mopeds and scooters were electric? How quiet they’d be! Well, it seemed France had answered my prayers (when does that ever happen?), when while taking a walk one night, I see this poster in the window of a scooter shop:
It means that the French government will give you 400 euros toward the purchase of any electric scooter, moped or mobilette. Curious, and thrilled, I decided to go back to the shop the next day to learn more.
'Scooters & Bikes: For Rent and For Sale'
I talked with the shopkeeper Manuel, who was very helpful, and an excellent multi-tasker, being able to answer all my questions, and at the same time rabidly click on a computer screen which I could not see, but surmised was being used for illicitness, at best internet gambling.
Anyway, he told me that the €400 government-sponsored discount had been going on for about 9 months. “Has it worked?” I asked “People buy more of them?” He briefly looked up, and exhaled, making that sputtering sound with his lips as the breath left his mouth (signifying reflection), and said “You know, zerr’s a lot of zeese people in Paris who give a shit about zee environnement. Itz good for them.”
Manuel sold three different electric bikes, all of varying shapes and sizes, speeds and range:
From left to right: the e-Solex, the Kosmob, and the anonymous 'scooter électrique'
The top seller has been the e-Solex. Designed by Pininfarina, the Italian design company behind Ferrari, the e-Solex is a revamped, electrified version of the classic Vélo-Solex – the iconic French moped that became ubiquitous post-WWII as it was a cheap method of transportation, but which fell out of production in 1988.
The e-Solex can ride for up to 40km/25mi, and attain a speed of 35kmph/22mph – which may not seem like much, but is pretty good once you consider that the max-speed of all two-wheelers in France is capped at 50kmph/31mph, and that the e-Solex is intended for stop-and-go city traffic, where surpassing 35kmph/22mph would be nothing short of miraculous. The e-Solex can also be ridden in ECO-mode, which uses less electricity by capping the speed at 25kmph/16mph, and thus increases the range to 60km/37mi.
Ferrari-designed e-Solex
The BEST thing about the e-Solex, though, is that its 0.4KW lithium-ion battery weighs only 5kg (11 pounds), and is completely detachable, meaning you can easily remove it, carry it home with you, and plug it in against the wall for charging (~5 hours). This makes the e-Solex extremely practical in a city like Paris, where almost no one has a garage to plug in their EV, and the majority of people live up at least one flight of extremely narrow, winding, rickety stairs, and has very little inclination to haul their electric moped up them every night. True, the city is scattered with charging stations, but until they’re literally on every block, and recharging times decrease, people will find it a hassle to leave their bike a few blocks from home, for hours at a time, whenever their battery is depleted. The e-Solex solution – making the battery detachable – removes this hassle though.
So how much does this Ferrari of electric mopeds cost? €1,500 without the discount, meaning that with the subsidy only €1,100 – which, according to Manuel, is about as much as you’d pay for a gasoline-powered equivalent. And how does it drive? Well, according to Manuel, “Itz a little bit heavy, you know, 40 kilo, but itz not bad.” Which I think is a compliment from him.
The downside, though, is that unless your willing to import it, you can only get your hands on one in Europe.
Following my chat with Manuel, I went outside to snap some photos of his electric inventory – with his permission of course. Meanwhile, a little blond French boy of about 7 or 8 years saw what I was doing, and walked up to the e-Solex, mounted it, and struck a pose all Easy Rider style. It was priceless. The blog had to see it. And so I asked him, “Je peux prendre une photo de vous?” I already knew his answer though – how could I not? Every Frenchie, especially every little French boy, secretly yearns celebrity Americana, real or imagined. And so I snapped away. And the little blond boy loved it.
That is, until his father – I guess another one of the scooter shopkeepers who must’ve been in the back and I hadn’t seen up till then – burst upon the scene, hitting me with words that, while I couldn’t exactly understand, I clearly intuited were not compliments on my photographic abilities. With the force and tone of his words pushing all the blood to my head however, I had a spurt of linguistic intelligence, and was able to gather “It really *@#$% pisses me off that you’re taking pictures of my kid, you didn’t even ask me, you little *@#$%, delete them now before I smash your camera” – while the kid is squealing “But why Papa, why?”
I was tempted to run for it, but visions of this hotblooded mechanic chasing me with a wrench, or worse, were enough to persuade me otherwise, and so I promptly deleted all the photos with his kid in them. Shucks, because they were great photos. But I guess the French get pretty touchy about you taking pics of their kids. Which is kind of ironic, because none of the them seem to mind Roman Polanski touching a 13 year-old girl.
And so, the lesson of this story is that you’ll have to settle for my dog, Lucas, posing with the e-Solex. He’s kind of blond…
Don't hate me cos I'm beautiful
Filed under: EVs of the World | Tags: EV charging station, Gallic discontent, Marcel Duchamp, Paris, Paul Simon, vehicule electrique
Walking the streets of Paris – doing the “trottoir,” as they say – one is liable to see many a thing: lots of high heels, regurgitating sewers, poor imitations of Paul Simon as backpacker, incontestably waifish old women, silhouettes of urine-soaked cement, enough second-hand smoke to turn an infant French, enough strewn cigarette butts to keep Marcel Duchamp happy an eternity, expressions of “more stylish than thou,” expressions of vain Gallic discontent, xenophobic airs, French (and not English) bulldogs… the list goes on.
Imagine my surprise, nay delight, then, when whilst taking a walk one morning, I look down, and instead of finding dog poo smeared across my new shoes, I see this:
Is it... EV?
Wait a second… doesn’t that look like?… Could it be?… But it can’t… but maybe it is?…
I peer upwards…
EVs ONLY: GAS CARS KEEP OUT!
There was no doubt about it. It was a plug-in electric vehicle charging station! My first, real-life, personal encounter with one. My day is made…
My first EV charging station
So it turns out that since 2007 there’s been over 90 of these stations installed all around Paris.
All dotted around
Most of them can handle a couple cars and a few ‘two wheelers’ (mopeds or motorbikes), but about half can handle trucks too. Drivers simply pull into the designated parking spaces, get out, plug in, swipe their card, and voilà, can go off and do their chores while their vehicle recharges.
Anyone that owns a plug-in hybrid or electric vehicle can get a charging card, and the best thing about it is that both charging and parking are free. Well, at least for a certain amount of time. In high-congestion areas, cardholders get to park and charge at these stations for up to 2 hours, while in more residential streets, they can park and charge for 24 consecutive hours.
Not a bad deal. Anyone who’s been to Paris knows there’s not many spots to park your car, and get buzzed, without having to pay a single centime.
