Paris is a city with its fair share of traffic problems. It's also the largest city where a public bicycle rental service is being used, very successfully (Ve'lib) and we already knew about the city's plans to install a similar service featuring electric cars. An EV rental plan even helped the Mayor win re-election, and more information about this plan has now been unveiled. First of all, the fleet is going to be exclusively electric, with 4,000 units. That's a very large order for a single model of a vehicle - but which model has not yet been announced. The system, called Auto'lib, which means "Auto à libre disposition" (Help-yourself car) will not only be installed in the city itself, but it will cover the suburbs (banlieue), expanding the range that the bike rental service operates in.

The scheduled roll-out date is late 2009 and to handle the 4,000 EVs the system will have 700 stations (with 200 of them underground) and a powerful computer system coordinating the rentals. Prices aren't yet known (rumors hint at about €250 per month, including full insurance), but it seems likely that Parisians will be able to enjoy the service with their regular "Navigo" mass transit cards.

[Source: Evous]

The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has been touting the idea of an electric or hybrid car sharing program for the "city of lights" for some time now. Trouble was, he had an election to win before he could really claim a mandate to make it happen. Luckily for him and his socialist-leaning ways, the electorate have been quite unhappy in recent days with their right wing, wife dumping, model-marrying president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and to express themselves federally, they voted locally for monsieur Delanoë. Still with me? Good.

The program, dubbed Autolib' (kind of like "free car") after the very successful Paris bicycle sharing scheme, Velib', is similar to one already underway in the City of Lyon. Actually, I once knew a guy from Lyon. Claimed absolutely everything had been invented, explored, or worn by the French first . But I digress...

Unlike the 24 vehicle program in Lyon, Delanoë wants 2000 cars for Paris and those automobiles may be practically identical to those yellow Th!nks City cars you see pictured above (photo taken in Paris by the way) as that company is, reportedly, preparing a bid for the project. The monthly bill for the car sharing scheme, the subject of a lot of chatter on the French site Wikio, may be as much as €250. The electricity to run the cars will be offered free. Bonne chance mes amis! (Good luck, my friends!)

[Source: Wikio / EEMS]