Electric Cars in Paris—by the Hour
Parisian Shared-Electric Bluecar
Paris officials hope to deploy about 3,000 shared electric cars in Paris next summer and 5,000 by 2013. To support the new system, called Autolib, Paris and the surrounding cities will install 1,000 charging stations.
The new Autolib system was inspired by the Parisian shared bike system. Despite some unanticipated problems—vandalism and theft—Paris’ bike system has been very popular with 20,000 bikes ridden over a million times a year.
Electric vehicles are more expensive than bikes and one wealthy family is funding much of the Autolib’s planned €250 million price tag: about 335 million dollars US.
In Addicted to Energy I recommend that San Francisco implement a shared vehicle program in an all-electric downtown. My cost estimate: $400 million for 10,000 electric vehicles.
How did I get twice the vehicles for about the same price? I recommended a half-width vehicle, the Tango, which cuts the amount of parking needed by 50%.
I guess it is not a surprise that the Parisians passed on an America vehicle. Perhaps we can find an American city–or billionaire–to try the Tango.
Elton's Environment 
I’m quite interested in the motor. If it makes less noise than my laptop I’d buy an electric car in the near future.