Paris Is Sharing Electric Cars by the Thousand—Will It Play in Indianapolis? | Hacker News Reader

Paris Is Sharing Electric Cars by the Thousand—Will It Play in Indianapolis?

bloomberg.com

45 pointsT-A23 comments

I'm a regular Autolib user in Paris, and I have to say Autolib is just pure awesome. It's the piece of the puzzle that has been missing in public transport, because sometimes you just need a car. Some examples:

Moving large bulky items

Getting around quickly in the suburbs, out of the city centre

Rerving parking in the city centr a ahead of time

Actually, those are the three main use cases for me. I do everything else with my electric bike or the metro. Still, the service has changed my life - I no longer own a car because of it, and I'm not alone in that. Just yesterday another friend was selling her car on Facebookfor the same reason.

Anyway, I think the Indy city council would do better by stopping worrying about who had the right to do what, and just get behind this thing. It just makes people's lives better.

I live in Paris suburb and Autolib isn't useful for me and the lost of parking space complaint is quite real. So 'pure awesome' for its customers, probably, annoying for other: that's true also.

As someone who uses neither Autolib nor regular car, I'm way more annoyed by the regular cars completely filling the roads everyday (one person by car, 95% of the time), polluting, making buses late and taking a huge part of the city/sideways, than by someone using Autolib once in a while.

This is the car they are using: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollor%C3%A9_Bluecar

Approximate total cost of ownership over 7 years is €25.000 but you only need €19.000 upfront plus another €80 to lease the battery each month. 150KM highway range.

There is an issue with the battery technology though. AFAIK these cars must stay plugged and draw power when not in use to keep the battery above 70C.

It's an issue only if you don't reach an appropriate usage rate of the car. Which is a non issue for shared cars in town.

The mayor of Indianapolis implemented this program by fiat, without any legal basis. The city-county council is furious.

There are no special legal carve-outs for the use of city parking spaces or municipal land by the autolib vehicles -- they're parked illegally and they'll start getting towed the minute a new mayor enters office.

As far as I know, it's not even legal to import the electric cars, much less drive them on public roads. They certainly don't meet NHTSA standards.

> As far as I know, it's not even legal to import the electric cars, much less drive them on public roads. They certainly don't meet NHTSA standards.

Why would it not be legal to import electric cars? The cumulatively most sold electric vehicle in the US, the Nissan Leaf, started off manufacturing in Japan only, and the initial batch in the US was all imported. The just launched BWM i3 and i8 are both imported, as well as the VW e-golf and a number of others.

And not be legal to drive? By the end of 2015 we will be at nearly 400k electric vehicles sold in just the US [1]. A faster adoption rate than hybrid vehicles [2].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_t...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_t...

From a quick google search:

> We are currently making the modifications necessary to meet the Department of Transportation (DoT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requirements. Fully compliant Bluecars will be produced in Q4 2014 and will be brought to Indianapolis for the public opening of the BlueIndy service. Among the modifications are additional airbags, braking and bumper modifications. A first set of European Bluecars is being brought to Indianapolis for demonstration and testing, under a temporary import authorization from NHTSA. A first batch of 10 will be used for a public demonstration starting on May 19. These temporary import Bluecars will subsequently be shipped back to France and replaced by the US model.

[1]: http://www.in.gov/oucc/files/44478_OUCC_Testimony_of_Edward_...

Thanks. I actually mis-read the parent comment as "it's not even legal to import electric cars" instead of "it's not even legal to import _the_ electric cars" referring specifically to the Bollore Bluecars.

Though I don't know much about the local controversy with the blue car launch in Indy, I highly doubt the relevant federal agencies would allow the importing and driving of hundreds of vehicles that have not passed through the relevant steps.

Ah, but they do, as long as it's for "demonstrations, racing, training and investigations"... :)

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2015/06/17/indy-councilor...

10 == 100s?

> under a temporary import authorization from NHTSA

Sounds legal.

Are there any special laws which would prohibit the use of city parking spaces as recharge stations?

If "city parking spaces" means parking spaces designated for city vehicles (and not just public parking on the street or whatever), then it's prohibited simply because this is a private company that doesn't actually have any agreement to use those spots.

What are their reasons for being furious, aside from that it wasn't their idea?

They are responsible for approving funding, and the mayor appropriated $6 million for the project without getting their approval. They would now have to find a way to pay for it, but their main point is that he overstepped his authority. It is unlikely to have been approved by the council if it was brought to them, because probably a majority of the council believe it's a poor use of Indianapolis' funds.

The above information is based on a quick Google search.

San Diego has had the electric Car2Go service for several years: http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/04/car2go-san-diego-upgrade...

(Rewriting) Another similar company also in the US is car2go.

https://www.car2go.com/en/columbus/

Not sure that the article is right in saying having silent cars is an advantage - increases risk to pedestrians and cyclists

That's FUD without statistics to back it up.

In that case why do electric/fuel cell cars/buses have noise makers?

The appeal of sharing cars is directly proportional to how ugly and soulless the new cars are designed to be. The world has been on that path for a couple of decades now, and it looks like we will hit the sharing economy precisely at the time when most new cars look like such that nobody would ever want to own one.

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