Heuliez Friendly and Pininfarina-Bollore Bluecar Available for Order

French manufacturer Heuliez announced it has began marketing of its Friendly all electric vehicle, pending the start of deliveries set for February 2010. The vehicle is available for online reservations (search as we might, the only thing we found that resembles an order form is this e-mail address- [email protected]). Priority purchasing rights will be granted to those who pay a 10 euro fee when they register as a buyer, Autonews reported.

Heuliez intends on selling all three versions - short, standard and long versions - of the Friendly plug in electric vehicle. For all of them, energy is provided by Nickel Metal Hydride batteries (NiMh) which can be recharged any time. The different battery pack options are to allow a range from 100 km to up 250 km and give a maximum speed of 110 km/h.

And now comes the hard part. The entry level Friendly, batteries included (never thought we'd say that about a car) has a starting price of about 12,000 euros. Don't expect to take for a ride all five members of your family though, because the vehicle is three seater. And has the driver's seat uncomfortably positioned in the center of the car.

Last week, French manufacturer Bollore announced that Bluecar, the result of a joint venture with Italian Pininfarina, is also available for online order. The difference is that Bollore doesn't not intend to sell the car, but secure a 330 euro/month leasing plan for the vehicle (you guessed, battery included).

The blue car is a compact MPV, conceived as a four-seater five-door vehicle. It is powered by Lithium Metal Polymere (LMP) batteries, combined with a device for energy storage which retrieves and stores energy during braking and makes it available when the vehicle restarts.

It seems that the world's first electric vehicle sales race is on. If you had to place a bet, our would be on the Bluecar, even if we'd have to base our choice on looks alone.