Electric Car Sharing Reaches the Bay Area

One of the first fleets of electric vehicles meant for car sharing programs is about to take its rightful place on the market, after nonprofit organization City CarShare announced today the launch of the eFleet program, one which will include everything from electric vehicles to charging station infrastructure.

City CarShare will spend $2.5 million of both its money and the money provided by the Climate Innovation Grant through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for the task at hand. The program's first phase will last 2 years and will see the deployment of 30 electric vehicles.

“Our eFleet program will make electric vehicles available to thousands of Bay Area car sharing members by providing low-cost access to electric vehicles (EVs) and contributing to huge savings of greenhouse gas emissions,” said City CarShare CEO Rick Hutchinson.

“We applaud the MTC for having the vision to support innovative, strategic transportation projects, including the various electrification programs funded through the Climate Initiative grants.”

The cars to be deployed and the car sharing system in which they will be used means that an estimated 12,000 tons of CO2 emissions will never reach the atmosphere in the first two years of the program.

The San Francisco Bay Area is currently making big efforts to become one of the cleanest regions in the world when it comes to individual transportation. Electric solutions provider Better Place announced today it will too enter the region with its battery switch stations, to serve a fleet of electric taxis. San Francisco is the second city to benefit from the stations after Tokyo.