Autolib Bringing Electric Car Sharing Company to USA

At the cross-section of electric cars and ride sharing is Autolib. It’s a car-sharing service created by Vincent Bolloré, a French Billionaire. The entrepreneur is set to bring it the United States. Autolib currently allows consumers to travel around Paris for $0.20 per minute. However, users also have to pay a monthly fee. This company is pushing  electric car sharing designed for the masses. Bloomberg has called it “the anti-Tesla.” Tesla Motors sells a high-priced, high-performing vehicle. It receives rave reviews and has the attention of other major automakers, however, Autolib is the exact opposite.

Autolib vehicles, called Bluecars, are not helpful for a lumber trip to home depot. They are small and described as being no frills. They look more similar to a Smartcar than anything else. It is a two-person grocery-getting commuting machine. It seems to be designed to run errands around town, not to haul a family on vacation or, in Tesla’s case, have exotic high-performance.

Bolloré, also isn’t shy in comparing his vehicles and their power plant to Tesla. In a Bloomberg article he said, “The key element in an electric vehicle isn’t the vehicle, it’s the electrical systems. We think that our technology is far superior to Tesla’s.” That technology for Bluecars involves the use of lithium polymer batteries. Tesla uses lithium-ion batteries. Lithium polymer batteries can be much lighter than lithium-ion and as thin as a credit card. However, they typically cost more to produce than lithium-ion batteries. The small BlueCars get about 160 miles of range out of a single charge.

Autolib is bringing their Bluecars to Indianapolis, IN this year. The mayor of the circle city is very electric vehicle friendly, having once declared that he wants the entire city fleet to be electric by 2025. The Bluecar system is expected to have 500 cars and 200 charging stations in Indianapolis by the end of the 2015. It may prove a success, or not. Either way, the owner of Autolib feels that he’ll end up alright. Bolloré, told Bloomberg, “If this thing works, we’ll be very rich. If it doesn’t, we’ll still be very rich, and we’ll stop spending 300 million euros per year.”