Car2Go launches 400 strong electric car fleet in Paris

The car sharing market in Paris has seen a turbulent last year. Since Bolloré’s pioneering Autolib had to declare bankruptcy, other carmakers rushed to replace the service. Daimler’s Car2Go now delivered well on schedule and launched 400 electric Smart ED to free-float across the French capital.

The move by the Daimler subsidiary had been announced for the first time at the Paris Motor Show last October and so Car2Go moved fast put their money where their mouth is.

400 new Smart ED have become available to rent today and more are to follow over the course of this year. Car2Go CEO Olivier Reppert considers Paris an ideal ground for free-floating, that is most flexible services. Moreover, it is the fourth city after Amsterdam, Madrid and Stuttgart to receive an all-electric service. Taken together, their fleet of electric vehicles now counts 2,100 in Europe.

In Paris, Car2Go will cover a service area of 77 km², that is the city within the Boulevard Périphérique, the motorway which surrounds inner Paris. Renting a smart fortwo ED costs between 0,24 and 0,34 euros per minute, depending on where and when you lease the car.

To charge, Car2Go clients may stop at one of about 1,100 charging points.

Apart from Car2Go, Parisians can rent electric cars from Renault’s service Moov’in for example. Also PSA has already introduced their Free2Move electric car sharing using 550 Peugeot iOn and Citroën C-Zero electric vehicles in Paris.

Apart from leaving customers spoilt (or annoyed) for choice, the many EVs will likely come in handy. The French capital will turn the greater Paris area into a low emission zone this summer, then banning the oldest and most polluting vehicles. All cars will have to apply a so called ‘Crit’Air’ vignette, which identifies car’s age and pollutions levels with colour coded stickers. Vehicles sporting a Crit’Air 5 sticker, which covers the period from 1997 to 2000, as well as all vehicles without a sticker, will be banned from the area.

daimler.com (press release, in German)