Bollore to quadruple electric-car points

Electric Autolib bluecar in Paris London - Arab Today French tycoon Vincent Bollore said Wednesday he aims to introduce a car version of the "Boris Bikes" hire scheme in London, and quadruple the number of electric car-charging points in Britain. IER, a subsidiary of the Bollore Group, has been selected by the Transport for London authority to take over the management of the existing Source London scheme from June this year. The network of 1,400 battery-charging points will be expanded to 6,000 by 2018, with IER investing £100 million (120 million euros, $166 million). Furthermore, Bollore said he was aiming to launch an electric car hire project in the British capital. The scheme would be based on Autolib in Paris, which was launched in 2011 and currently has more than 45,000 active subscribers making between 9,000 and 13,000 car journeys each day. "We'll have Blue Cars in London within the next 12 months," Bollore said. The Autolib model has also been rolled out to the French cities of Lyon and Bordeaux and will soon go into operation in the US city of Indianapolis. Bollore will eventually also offer a car-sharing scheme. London Mayor Boris Johnson said: "We're going to see more charging points popping up across London, which will drive the take-up of these cleaner, greener machines and help to reduce air pollution too." The popular short-term bike hire scheme in London was initially sponsored by Barclays bank, but soon acquired the nickname "Boris Bikes" after the mayor. Source: AFP