Rêves électriques
Roger Browning: Paris already has great public transport and a bike-hire scheme. No need to clog up the streets with electric cars, then
Electric cars used to be a joke. Nobody took them seriously (least of all the auto industry) because nobody knew what they were for. Now we know. But are they the answer to our personal transportation needs in a world with less and less oil, more and more CO2? Not quite.
The new Parisian scheme illustrates the range problem with contemporary electric car technology. It appears to be a pretty good project. As with their popular Vélib bicycle scheme, you collect the car from point charge A, drive to charge point B and drop it off, deal done.
Except that central Paris is already served by a fantastic public transport system, they have the aforementioned bicycle pool and in any case the center of Paris is so compact that often walking is the best option. So why clog the streets with 4,000 electric cars? The scheme doesn't appear to be aimed at getting drivers out of their CO2 producing cars, but rather at people who don't have a car but might occasionally find one useful.
Useful, that is, for a trip to the local market but don't even think about that Ikea store out beyond the périphérique because you'll run out of charge before you get your Billy shelves back home.
At present the center of Paris has no equivalent of London's congestion charge, yet this would be the ideal way to encourage motorists to swap. The average inner-city car journey of around five miles is well within the capabilities of an electric vehicle, so clearly if they have a role to play it's replacing combustion-engined cars in town, rather than supplementing them. But the bigger question remains, why bother with cars in the inner city at all?
The new Parisian scheme illustrates the range problem with contemporary electric car technology. It appears to be a pretty good project. As with their popular Vélib bicycle scheme, you collect the car from point charge A, drive to charge point B and drop it off, deal done.
Except that central Paris is already served by a fantastic public transport system, they have the aforementioned bicycle pool and in any case the center of Paris is so compact that often walking is the best option. So why clog the streets with 4,000 electric cars? The scheme doesn't appear to be aimed at getting drivers out of their CO2 producing cars, but rather at people who don't have a car but might occasionally find one useful.
Useful, that is, for a trip to the local market but don't even think about that Ikea store out beyond the périphérique because you'll run out of charge before you get your Billy shelves back home.
At present the center of Paris has no equivalent of London's congestion charge, yet this would be the ideal way to encourage motorists to swap. The average inner-city car journey of around five miles is well within the capabilities of an electric vehicle, so clearly if they have a role to play it's replacing combustion-engined cars in town, rather than supplementing them. But the bigger question remains, why bother with cars in the inner city at all?
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