Electric Cars and Car Sharing: The Perfect Pair
If current trends are an indicator, electric cars will make up a large proportion of the vehicles on the road in the next few years. At the same time, car sharing programs are gaining in popularity, with businesses like Car2Go and Communauto growing across the province. The idea behind car sharing is really simple: go to a predetermined location, take the car, pay by the hour, half-day or full day, and then return it to the same place or elsewhere, whichever works for you.
Electric cars are perfect for car sharing. Even though battery-powered vehicles have a limited range (averaging 130 kilometres), they offer more than enough for the quicker, shorter trips that most car-share users take. The next step would be to install fast charging stations at pick-up and drop-off points to solve one of the main problems associated with electric cars. It would work a little like Bixi bicycles, only with cars and charging stations.
This idea may seem a radical to many, but combining these two trends could very well serve a hot market and meet the needs of many drivers. In big cities, the logistical and financial aspects of owning a car don’t always make sense. Developing multiple car sharing networks would give people more options, while putting more electric vehicles on the road would reduce polluting emissions.