In a Montreal parking lot, Jean-Francois Beauchamp unhooks a power cable from his loaner car and cheerfully drives away, an enthusiastic user of a new service that is finding fans in equal measure among commuters and environmentalists.
“It’s very quiet, pleasant and doesn’t use gasoline,” says Beauchamp, 44, a Web designer and frequent user of the electric cars made available for hourly rental by the Communauto car-sharing enterprise.
His loaner vehicle is one from a fleet of gasoline-free cars pointing the way forward for the increasingly popular car-share industry, which unlike a traditional car rental, allows customers to hire a vehicle for part of one day.
The Montreal-based Communauto, the oldest car-sharing company in North America, in the middle of last month launched the pilot project with 50 Nissan Leaf vehicles, hoping to become an industry leader of the electric loaner cars.
Communauto also is a bargain, charging about C$2 (US$2) per hour, which includes the cost of fuel, plus a subscription fee.
Electric cars early on met with consumer resistance, but the chance to try out the vehicles in a low-risk car-share has helped to greatly increase their popularity.
“I already have a car, but I subscribed to Communauto precisely because I wanted to try out an electric car,” new convert Georges Charlebois said.
Charlebois now dreams of when he’ll no longer have to rent one by the day or by the hour. That day may be a long way off, however: There is a waiting list for the vehicles at his local dealership.
The most ambitious electric car-sharing plan is wildly popular, but has a downside, Beauchamp admitted.
“You have to plan ahead because you can’t stop at a gas station to fill it up,” he said ruefully.
Communauto has tried to alleviate that problem, installing — in partnership with the giant public utility Hydro-Quebec — car charging stations in parking lots all across Montreal.
Devoid of a conventional combustion engine, the loaner cars — emblazoned with the slogan “100% electric” — are famously quiet, so not only do they not increase air pollution, but they don’t add to the city’s noise pollution, either. Most of the electric cars can go about 140km before needing to be recharged — although the batteries become partially replenished when the brakes are pressed, or when the vehicle is driven downhill.
Communauto chief executive Benoit Robert said the company is excited about the addition of the green cars to its fleet.
“The electric car will allow us to further reduce emissions from our users,” he said.
The popularity of the vehicles already is having an ecological upside, he added.
“We already are having a significant impact on reducing the rate of motorized car use by the population and this has a direct impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Benoit said.
Catherine Morency, a professor at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, said the program is a marketing masterstroke because of the synergy between the car-share and green car industries.
The arrangement also is a plus for manufacturers of green automobiles, because a wider range of renters — and potential purchasers — try out the cars before purchase.
However, the two industries part ways in terms of their long term goals: While makers of green cars are hoping to put a lot more of them on the road, Communauto seeks, in the end, to reduce the number of cars in circulation.
Car-sharing will convert at least some motorists to the electric car, thereby increasing the demand for these vehicles, popular automobile columnist Denis Duquet said.
“The production will increase, prices will drop and people who have used the electric car in Communauto are likely eventually to buy their own,” Duqet said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of