Drive an electric Citroën C-Zero for 113$ a month
Citroën has just announced an incredible deal, intended to encourage electric mobility in France. The manufacturer has put in place a rental scheme that makes it’s C-Zero available for 90 euros (113$) a month. The only catch? You need to allow others to rent the car through its Multicity website.
Electric vehicles have a reputation for being expensive. The deal set up by Citroën is remarkably affordable: a 23 month rental contract for its C-Zero at 90 euros a month (total distances limited to 20,000 kms or 12,427 miles over the 2 years). And what’s the catch of this very interesting deal? You make a commitment to renting out the car, when you’re not using it, using the Citroën Multicity website.
The website, which is developed in partnership with Zilok Auto, makes vehicle rental between private owners possible. In order to avail of the rental offer, you have accept renting out your car to others. What makes the deal mind-boggling is that when you do rent out your car, you receive 40% of the rental revenues from your car.
The math: renting the C-Zero costs 1080 euros (1358 USD, 870 GBP) a year. If you rent it out 30 times a year, at 30 euros per day, you will earn 360 euros (453 USD, 290 GBP) a year. This is over and above any saving on fuel that you would have by driving an electric car.
This deal is a real first and is very exciting. I believe it is only available to private drivers and I think you better get going if you want to get one. You need to sign up on the Multicity website, or go to a Citroen dealership to get the offer.
The deal doesn’t appear have a time limit, but is clearly an experiment by Citroen, which is to say that the terms may change depending on the success of the deal. So if you have ever wanted to drive an electric car, get going because at this price, you cannot do better.
I do have a little thought for the people who have just bought the C-Zero at full price.
Editor’s note on 16 June 2012 at 16h00: contrary to what was announced at the press conference, the deal is in fact a limited offer “Deal limited to 200 vehicles available in stock, cannot be combined with any other deal, valid from 21 June, 2012 to 21 July, 2012. For private individuals only”
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