Electric hire cars coming to London

For the one third of Londoners who do not have a car, and those others in the capital for whom motoring is an expensive, if necessary, evil, a public electric car hire scheme is to be launched.

Paris already has Autolib – a pool of 2,000 electric cars sited across Paris and its suburbs, which drivers are able to rent at any time. Bolloré, the company behind the French capital's car sharing network is to provide up to 3,000 new electric rental cars for London by 2016.

"An electric car, but cheap"

It seems likely that users of the scheme will pay a monthly membership fee, and then pay around £5 to rent the electric car for each half hour. In common with London's Boris Bikes, the electric hire car scheme will be a point-to-point rental.

At the unveiling of the plans for London, Vincent Bolloré said: "Until now, the electric car is a toy of the happy few: it's very expensive and does not have the autonomy of a normal car. We have designed a car that is cheap: a beautiful, real car, with four seats, but cheap."

What are the real benefits of an electric car hire scheme?

The London electric car hire scheme has been described as Boris Cars, but it is unlikely to have anywhere near the same impact as the Boris Bikes. It's real benefit will be as a PR exercise for the city and electric cars. Public transport and cycling in the centre of London is so efficient that electric cars cannot hope to compete. From an environmental perspective, the move towards hybrid electric taxis as a replacement for the current diesel-powered fleet will have far more benefit.