Last night we had dinner near Gare du Nord in Paris, since we were meeting our son who was returning from a business trip to London. After the excellent Indian meal he asked if we would like to travel home by autolib. Of course we would! Using his phone he reserved a car at the nearest charging station, which was about fifty metres from the restaurant. He also reserved a parking space at the station outside his apartment. When we reached the station he swiped his autolib card, the light flashed on the charger of the allocated car, and the car opened.
The small car is very roomy, taking four of us easily.
A panel on the dashboard welcomed him by name (not correctly spelled!) and the radio tuned itself to his last chosen station. The GPS showed the most direct route home ….. what an easy business!
A few minutes later we were parking the car, and plugging it in again. A message flashed onto his phone teling him the cost of the trip, about 4 euros. As well as the cost of using the car he pays 12euros per month to subscribe … so who would own their own car in Paris?
So pleased I managed to make a link in this blog ….using Blogsy is easy but it takes me time to learn how to do things 🙂
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dadirridreaming 
Brilliant invention, Christine, and definitely the way to go, for short trips.
The wave of the future I believe.
BE ENCOURAGED! BE BLESSED!
What a brilliant idea, the French are so clever!
I would love to have an electric car.
Amazing! Can’t wait to try it out 🙂
Wow! What a great system!
Quite delightful, how fun. How modern! Think I saw a 60 Min feature on this.
Isn’t that great! My sons live in big cities here in the US, and neither one owns a car. They just use ZIP cars (similar to what you described). Such a great system! (electric even better!) Thanks for taking the time to share this with us!
you are learning blogsy very well, good job christine, and thanks for the info, my husband is french and will love the progress you report, MJ
Hi Christina, Finally got to read your blog. You write so well. Your trip to Ireland brought back many memories. Fascinated to read of the electric car in Paris. Have a lovely time in beautiful Paris (yes you too Stewie x) Mary Mc xxx
thanks dear miss mary, good to hear from you, the trip is great!
Great idea. Thank you for sharing. The autolib are like DIY taxi’s. I’d like to see them in Australia 🙂
How cool!
thanks for sharing this very cool experience! I wish I had a son in Paris ……………
sons come in handy sometimes 🙂
I will just have to wait for a handy son-in-law, I guess
Wow, this is so fascinating, Christine. I thought this was the stuff of futuristic movies. What an innovative, environmentally friendly and cheap way of getting around.Sydney could do with something like this… Great post!
PS – Would you mind if I reblogged this post?