Shared Electric Car Rental Service Coming To Paris

Combining environmental goals with business savvy, the City of Paris has awared French busines magnate Vincent Bollore a franchise to offer shared electric cars. This is similar to the ZipCar concept, with the all-electric battery fleet and charging stations being the primary difference.

Paris' experiment with bicycles has demonstrated both that there is demand for shared transportation and that maintenance costs due to damage and theft are far higher than predicted. The Autolib' service, as it is called, will provide far more locations than similar services in the US and the price will be lower. The question is whether that will be sufficient to change consumer behavior based on ownership. The acknowledged hassle of parking in Paris is the incentive, Autolib's backers hope will make it successful.

Max Colchester and Ruth Bender report in the Wall Street Journal:

"Vincent Bolloré, the French mogul who has invested in palm oil, a French newspaper and global advertising, this year is making what might be his boldest gamble: a shared-electric-car project for the City of Lights.

If all goes as planned, hundreds of electric cars financed by Bolloré SA will be available by December at thousands of specially designed charging pods across Paris. For a small subscription fee and per-use charges, residents will be able use the cars and return them to any charging station.

For Paris, which granted a contract to Bolloré, the venture is an attempt to curb congestion and pollution. By using electric cars, offering convenient drop-offs and keeping fees very low, the program differs from the cut-rate rental services in some cities. And analysts say Autolib', as the Paris program is known, is more extensive than the car-sharing programs in cities such as London and Austin, Texas, which mainly use gasoline-powered cars.

For Mr. Bolloré, Autolib' is a way to test a €1.5 billion ($2 billion) several-year investment to develop an electric car and battery. He says it will cost his company another €200 million to get Autolib' running.
Analysts say Autolib' isn't a slam dunk.

"It's a pretty audacious idea," says Tali Trigg, an energy-technology analyst at the International Energy Agency.

If the city's four-year-old bicycle-sharing program is any guide, Mr. Bolloré also will get socked with maintenance costs because of vandalism or careless users. Around 8,000 bicycles were stolen from the fleet of 20,000 in the first two years of that program. Electric cars are harder to steal and damage than bicycles, analysts say, but they are also more expensive and their batteries could attract thieves.

For the project to meet its year-end deadline, Mr. Bolloré and his collaborators need to "make 5,000 holes in Paris, install 5,000 electric recharging stations…recruit 1,500 people and build 3,000 cars," he says in an interview.

Mr. Bolloré is undeterred. While he predicts the program will break even within three years, the program also is a means of showcasing his electric-car battery technology. "Either we succeed, and we will be very rich," he says. "Or we will fail, and get quite rich."

Mr. Bolloré, 59 years old, has a reputation for diving into a wide array of enterprises. His family company was founded in 1822, making ultrathin paper used in bibles and cigarettes. Under his stewardship, the Brittany-based company focused on producing plastic parts for electrical components. As earnings rose, Bolloré diversified into palm-oil plantations, a French free newspaper and machines that print boarding cards at airports.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Bolloré bought a minority stake in media and construction conglomerate Bouygues SA, a holding he later sold for a €250 million profit. He did better still by buying and selling stakes in the Lazard Ltd. investment bank and French film distributor Pathé SA. His most notable coup was six years ago, when he built a 20%—and, subsequently, a 32.9%—stake in French advertising firm Havas SA, of which he now is chairman.

Bolloré recorded €7 billion in revenue for last year.

In a Paris tender for Autolib' last year, Mr. Bolloré fended off rival bids from the public-transportation unit of Veolia Environnement SA and a consortium that included U.S.-based car-rental company Avis Budget Group Inc. and French national railroad SNCF.

Mr. Bolloré's bid won because he promised to charge users the least, says Annick Lepetit, Paris's deputy mayor for transportation. "Even if we and Mr. Bolloré are investing for different reasons, it is clear we have a similar goal: Make this work," she says.

Subscribers to Autolib' will be charged €12 ($17) a month, plus roughly €5 for each half-hour of use. They also will leave a refundable €150 deposit. The fleet is expected to have about 3,000 cars by March.

A user will enter a sidewalk hut that connects by video to an operator. After registering a driver's license and providing credit-card details, the user will be issued a badge that unlocks a nearby car. Drivers can use the car's on-board computer to reserve space at recharging pods.

Bolloré has bought factories in Brittany and Canada to build the electric-car batteries. Italy's Cecomp SpA will construct the Bluecar, as the vehicle will be called. It has a range of 150 miles and a top speed of 80 miles per hour, Mr. Bolloré says. Nissan Motor Co. says its electric Leaf, which went on sale last year, has a maximum range of 110 miles and a top speed of 90 mph.

Autolib', Mr. Bolloré says, "is the most essential project of [my] group."

"Am I nervous? No, I'm not."