France to Open Charging Stations for Electric Cars

Since electric cars are often regarded as the future of the automotive sector, the adjacent infrastructure is more than a must have in a certain country of the world. Just imagine a world full of hybrids without any recharging station that would allow drivers to recharge their cars’ batteries... Well, France wants to avoid such an nightmarish situation so it’s now considering setting up a large network of recharging stations for electric cars.

President Nicolas Sarkozy recently pointed that he expects to see at least 100,000 electric vehicles sold in France by the end of 2012 and according to government officials, this measure is the first major step to achieve this goal, Autonews wrote today.

Although it may sound like piece of cake, establishing a battery charging station network is not even close to being easy, with several government officials to collaborate with manufacturers, public utilities and other companies involved in the automotive sectors on the required infrastructure. In addition, a selected group of representatives will supervise “public procurement policies for electric vehicles,” as the aforementioned source reported.

In a conference held in early February, Jerome Perrin, head of Renault’s research, advanced studies and materials division, called for support from the France government, explaining that electric cars infrastructure is absolutely required in case the country wants to migrate to this kind of less-polluting vehicles.

“Running battery changing stations is a service activity, and there’s no doubt we’re going to see an industrial investor step in and handle that,” Perrin said at the conference.

Both Renault and Nissan plan to launch electric vehicles by 2012, while several overseas automakers, including Mitsubishi, Toyota and General Motors announced their plans to step into this side of the sector in the next few years.