Posted on October 04, 2011 by Fiona Hilliard

Next time you’re driving around the French capital in your car rental Paris, look out for an invasion of bubbles drifting through the streets.  No, locals haven’t embarked on a sudden washing frenzy – we’re talking Bubble cars and what claims to be the biggest self-service electric car scheme to ever have been undertaken.

Any driver carrying a full driver’s licence will be eligible to pick up one of the four-seater electric blue cars for zipping around the city, before dropping it back at a battery charging point.

The Autolib service hopes to mirror the French capital’s success with Velib, a self-service bicycle scheme that has been replicated in London and Dublin.

The €235m (£202m) project was dreamt up by the city’s Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe. He wants the scheme to be the city’s newest weapon in their war on traffic, pollution and parking.  Already over 50% of Parisians do not own a car. Impressive. And there we were thinking the town was over-run with Nicoles and Papas…

Businessman Vincent Bolloré, a close friend of Nicolas Sarkozy has poured money into the scheme.

Bolloré’s company designed a super-compact car which runs on his patented  lithium and metal polymer battery to showcase his innovation.

So far 66 bubble cars have been let loose at 33 rental stations around Paris. The scheme will officially launch in December and add 3,000 more cars and over 1000 new stations by the end of 2012.

How does the scheme work?

Users must produce a driving licence recognised in France and sign up for daily, weekly or annual memberships ranging from €10 to €144. Drivers then pay according to the length of hire, with fees ranging from €4-8.