Paris Mayor promises electric car sharing. Gets re-elected.

The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has been touting the idea of an electric or hybrid car sharing program for the "city of lights" for some time now. Trouble was, he had an election to win before he could really claim a mandate to make it happen. Luckily for him and his socialist-leaning ways, the electorate have been quite unhappy in recent days with their right wing, wife dumping, model-marrying president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and to express themselves federally, they voted locally for monsieur Delanoë. Still with me? Good.

The program, dubbed Autolib' (kind of like "free car") after the very successful Paris bicycle sharing scheme, Velib', is similar to one already underway in the City of Lyon. Actually, I once knew a guy from Lyon. Claimed absolutely everything had been invented, explored, or worn by the French first . But I digress...

Unlike the 24 vehicle program in Lyon, Delanoë wants 2000 cars for Paris and those automobiles may be practically identical to those yellow Th!nks City cars you see pictured above (photo taken in Paris by the way) as that company is, reportedly, preparing a bid for the project. The monthly bill for the car sharing scheme, the subject of a lot of chatter on the French site Wikio, may be as much as €250. The electricity to run the cars will be offered free. Bonne chance mes amis! (Good luck, my friends!)

[Source: Wikio / EEMS]