The three partners will be manufacturing, at first, a batch of 4,000 units, which will form a new fleet of car sharing models deployed by French company Autolib. Autolib is a company funded by the city of Paris and will only offer electric vehicles for sharing. In the future, just like its sister bike-sharing system called Velib, Autolib will expand in some 40 other cities.
The details of the production version models of the Bluecar have not been officially made public, but some of its specs are already known. The models will use Lythium Metal Polymere (LMP) batteries, which can give the cars a range of 250 km (155 miles) and a top speed of 130 km/h (80mph).
The LMP, which has a 200,000 km life span and does not require any maintenance during this period, can be recharged using an usual socket and takes a few hours to reach full capacity. The electric motor to which it is paired gives it a naught to sixty acceleration time of 6.3 seconds and a top speed of 130 km/h (80 mph), electronically limited.
The production of the 4,000 models will begin this year, with plans to continue making the Bluecar until 2017. As soon as they're launched, the Bluecars will be available for rental in the car sharing system for as little as EUR12/month, with an extra EUR5 to EUR6 to be paid for each half an hour of travel.
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