Just walk up, unlock and unplug the car and drive away. When you're finished with it, drop it off at a charging point, lock it up and walk away. All for €5.50 per month.

Car sharing schemes where users have an access card and a PIN to start the engine aren’t new – but I hadn’t seen one in action until recently.

To add a bit of extra interest, this was an electric car scheme – all the cars were Peugeot 106s or Citroen Saxos that had been converted to electric power for urban use.

For around a fiver per month, users in this city get unlimited access to 50 electric cars, which are parked in 7 allocated parking locations (with charging points) around the city. If you’re starting to get interested, then sorry – this isn’t the UK I’m talking about.

The location of this scheme is La Rochelle, in France. The scheme seems to be called Liselec and users get 24/7 free access to any of the cars via an access card (for unlocking) and a PIN code (to start the motor). The subscription is €5.50 per month and there don’t seem to be any strings attached. It sounds like a neat idea for city dwellers who don’t leave the city that often – why own a car (and have to find parking for it) when you can use someone else’s, with guaranteed parking?

Would you be interested in such a scheme in the UK – do you know of any similar schemes already running?

At the same time comes news that Renault is unveiling no fewer than four electric vehicle concepts at next week’s Frankfurt Motor Show, heralding the launch of the company’s Zero Emission product range. This is a clear sign that the French manufacturer is committing to electric in a big way. These may only be concepts, but you can be fairly confident that some real production vehicles will be follow them in the not-too-distance future.

Car hire companies are planning to get in on the act, too. Europcar has just signed an agreement with Renault to roll out its Zero Emission range of electric vehicles from 2011. Europcar will also implement the necessary recharging infrastructure at its branches.

Renault’s research shows that 80% of people in Europe currently travel less than 60km per day – ideal for current electric cars, which typically have ranges of up to 100 miles on a full charge. Despite this, most of us occasionally undertake much longer journeys in our cars, giving rise to the need for extended range or easy and rapid recharging/refuelling.

For this reason, I still believe the future will be hybrid more than pure electric, but pure electric vehicles will definitely have a place. I suspect that electric vehicles may provide the basis for a new generation of hybrids, where the electric system is primary and the internal combustion engine is small, secondary, and primarily used for charging.

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The Mitsubishi iMiEV is one of the first 4/5-seater fully-electric vehicles from a mainstream manufacturer. Originally a petrol-engined car, the electric version is just about to go on sale. Five thousand are earmarked for the UK market (only 50,000 are being made) and they will be priced at between £20,000 and £25,000.

It is a lot of money – but new technology always costs more. Think back to the first mobile phone or computer you owned and compare them to what’s available now.

Anyway, if you are interested in electric cars, the review in The Register is detailed, readable and balanced. There are plenty of pictures, too, so it is well worth a read.

Click here for the review, or check out some of my previous articles on electric cars here, here and here.

David Millward, the Telegraph’s Transport Editor is trialling an electric Smart car in London. His main problem is ‘range anxiety’ – the fear of running out of power away from a charging point.

However, he is mostly impressed – although it would be nice not to have to worry about strangers unplugging your car when charging in public places.

It’s well worth a read if you are interested in electric cars and the reality of using current models – click here for the full article.

I’ve gathered together a mixture of links from the mainstream and specialist motoring press that include a couple of electric car reviews and a discussion of the issues at hand:

• The Guardian introduces the £5,000 subsidy scheme and explains how it will work
• A slideshow of pictures of current electric models – again from The Guardian
• Test drives and reviews of both the TH!NK City and the Chevrolet Volt, which I think is a more realistic prospect for mass-market take up, thanks to its longer (petrol-fuelled) range
• A somewhat short-sighted article about the problems with electric cars in The Times – the writer misses the point that all of his objections would once have applied to conventional cars. In fact, almost all new technology seems impractical at first – think about mobile phones…
• The Guardian highlights how fast the electric car market is expanding – with new models constantly being introduced.
• Finally, some electric car owners talk about their experience of owning and using electric cars in The Guardian.

I think that electric vehicles are reaching a turning point – within a few years they really will be viable for a significant minority of people. From then on, it’s just a question of time. Watch this space.

Most of our towns and cities are full of old housing with inconveniently located on-street parking – meaning that running a cable from your house to your car would be nigh-on impossible.

This practical point could have a big effect. GM has admitted that the CO2 emissions of its forthcoming Ampera extended-range electric car could double in the UK as a result of owners not being able to charge their vehicles outside their houses.

(The Ampera has an on-board petrol generator to provide electricity to power the vehicle when the batteries run flat. This would have to run more if cars weren’t hooked up to the mains to charge.)

Here’s a link to the relevant Autocar article – it’s well worth a read.

1. Electric cars don’t reduce pollution, they simply transfer it from cars to power stations.
2. Our existing power generation and supply network would not be up to the job of charging millions of electric cars every night.

Both of these concerns are undoubtedly valid, but both might also be exaggerated in their significance. Here’s why:

1. It’s generally accepted that it is more feasible to make a few, more environmentally-friendly power stations than it is to make millions of lower emission cars.
2. In the US, many power companies believe that the demand generated by charging a few million electric vehicles overnight would actually help them – by evening out the load and generating economies of scale (i.e. more electricity = cheaper electricity).

It’s certainly long been the case in the UK that electricity is cheaper at night – because it’s going spare. Anyone who has had Economy 7 in their homes will be familiar with this, as will (I suspect) large-scale industrial users.

In addition, the take up of electric vehicles is inevitably going to be gradual, so demand for recharging power will likewise increase gradually, allowing power companies to work out the best way of responding to it.

More of a practical problem might be charging points and the power supplies that would need to be wired up to them.

Where I live, parking is on-street, unallocated and on the opposite side of the road to my house – so I couldn’t possibly run a wire out to my vehicle, even on the rare occasions I manage to park close to my house. This situation is pretty common with older housing in all of our towns and cities – not to mention blocks of flats.

The biggest problem, of course, is what happens if you need to charge before you get home again?

That’s why I think cars like the GM Volt – all-electric but with an on-board petrol generator to charge batteries on the move – are the answer at the moment.

I’m afraid that you won’t catch me buying a vehicle that I can’t refuel anywhere in Europe in under 10 minutes – whatever the environmental benefits might be.

Renault Ditches Hybrids

Renault has announced that is abandoning any efforts to produce hybrid vehicles and concentrating all of its efforts on producing commercially viable all-electric cars and vans. The company aims to have its first electric vehicles on the market by 2011 – a Renault Kangoo van, a Clio hatchback and a larger saloon model.

The vehicles will use batteries from NEC (who have an arrangement with Renault’s partner Nissan) and will probably be leased, rather than sold, initially – due to high battery replacement costs.

Fancy an Electric Range Rover?

One of the problems with downsizing your gas-guzzler for a frugal electric urban runabout is that, well, they aren’t very luxurious. Electric car specialists Liberty Electric Car thinks that this desire for luxurious, ostentatious prestige is one reason that people aren’t buying existing electric cars.

Its solution? Electric Range Rovers. One thousand of them, to be precise.

The Liberty-converted Chelsea tractors will have an impressive 200 mile range – twice that of most existing and planned electric cars – and will cost an eye-watering £125,000. But if you can afford £57,000 OTR for a regular (basic spec) model, maybe that doesn’t seem so bad…

London To Get Electric Taxis, Courtesy Greentomatocars?

Eco-friendly private hire service greentomatocars.com is set to partner with Renault in a bid to bring all-electric taxis to the congested streets of London. The two companies are members of the Partnership for Zero-Emission Mobility and are planning to:

• Create a network of charging points around London
• Renault will supply and operate a number of electric hire cars for the greentomatocars’ fleet – moving them from operating hybrids to operating zero-emission vehicles.

As Jonny Goldstone, Director of greentomatocars says, “Hybrid cars are currently the best solution when looking for low emission urban transport, but as soon as a serious zero emission alternative appears we aim to be first in the queue to operate those cars.”

Fleet News has just published a First Drive road test of the i Miev that makes interesting reading. Summed up in a nutshell, they found that:

• It’s pretty good to drive
• It has a typical sub-100 mile range
• It will do up to 70mph and works well around town
• It’s likely to be rather expensive at an estimated £17-£20,000

In fact, FN’s conclusions mirror those in an article I wrote for another website a while ago – “Electric Car Profitability Remains Elusive – Here’s Why“. As the Fleet News review writes, “Fleets will really want to make an eco-statement to pay such a price for what is a limited vehicle”

I think it’s fair to say that the same consideration applies to private car owners – only a minority will pay so much for so little – a vehicle that takes 6+ hours to charge and can’t travel more than 80 miles in one day.

Zero emissions at the tailpipe is all very well, but the price might still be too high, I think.