Following the launch of the BlueIndy electric vehicle carsharing program in Indianapolis last year, Bollore Group will soon be launching a similar service in Los Angeles.
The new electric vehicle (EV) carsharing service, dubbed BlueCalifornia, will be only the second such service operated by the France-based Bollore Group in the US. The group manages a number of similar programs around France, though.
The new EV carsharing service will utilize a fleet of up to 100 vehicles and 200 charging stations. The plan is apparently to get at least 7,000 people using the program — which would slash private vehicle ownership and use a fair amount, according to those involved. Of course, LA’s low density and high auto dependence could make this a challenging city for the model, but the team behind the pilot program has apparently done a bit of research on which areas to target.
Autoblog provides more: “The pilot program, which has been approved by the Los Angeles City Council, will be rolled out in Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Westlake, Pico-Union, and Koreatown, as well as the area located between downtown and USC. Those neighborhoods have been deemed among the top 10% most in need in the state of California in terms of reducing pollution and poverty.”
Note that city electric carsharing is one of the first 10 cleantech solutions CleanTechnica director Zach Shahan encourage readers to implement in their (your) cities.
Here’s more from Autoblog: “The program will receive about $10 million in funding from Bollore Group, about $2 million from the city of Los Angeles, and $1.67 million in grants from the California Air Resources Board (CARB).” This public–private partnership model certainly seems like the most effective method for cities to take in order to get such programs zipping along.
To give a better idea of what the above-stated goal means, the BlueIndy service attracted its first 1,000 members in just the first half year of operation or so. The goals for Los Angeles are a bit more ambitious than that, but probably doable considering the scale of the city.
For more information on BlueIndy, see: “Consumer Reports Examines Indianapolis’s BlueIndy EV Carsharing Service (Video).”
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