The Bolloré Bluecar is now available for private owners
Strengthened by the experience of launching Autolib’, Bolloré will finally focus on delivering the first Bluecars to private owners. The more patient of these have waited for a few years…
Bolloré celebrated the 1000th vehicle produced for the Paris-based car-sharing service Autolib’ at its Geneva Car show stand. In two month’s time, 1750 Bollore electric vehicles will be in circulation on Paris streets.
Autolib’ provides a superb worldwide showcase for the LMP batteries that the group Bolloré manufactures, which seem to be working extremely well in the Autolib’ Bluecar. 250 million euros will be invested in the opening of a second Batscap factory, which will produce up to 20 000 batteries per year, all of which will be used in electric vehicles. In addition, this will create 300 new jobs. Well done!
All this is very exciting, but Bolloré has accumulated almost 9000 pre-bookings for the Bluecar from private parties since 2008. They have communicated next to zero about these reservations since. I was among the people who pre-booked the car, but I have had no information side: neither a letter, nor a brochure. I’m sure I’m not the only one who is a little disappointed by this lack of communication, especially as I was promised that I would be one of the “pioneers” of electric vehicles, which was French to boot.
So, Bolloré will finally start delivering cars to private owners, but not to all of them. The lucky ones will be picked in from a lottery among the people who pre-registered their interest. The winners will be able to rent the cars for 300 € per month. For the time being, we haven’t yet received any confirmation about the exact terms of the monthly rental. It would have been interesting to know how many Bolloré would be delivered this year, and how they expect to sell and maintain the cars.
Needless to say, I am a bit disappointed like the other 9000 private owners who placed their confidence in the group by pre-ordering the car. We are going to carefully follow the commercialization of the Bluecar here at Automobile-Propre…
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