Plan for 16,000 charging stations

THE OPERATOR of Paris's AutoLib electric car-sharing scheme has unveiled plans to install 16,000 charging points in towns and cities across France.

Bolloré has asked the French economy and ecology ministries for permission to embark on the €150 million project over four years, which would sell electricity to the owners of electric and hybrid vehicles.

The ministries will decide in January whether the scheme merits an exoneration for the tax paid by private firms for occupying public space (such as billboard advertisers).

France's parliament is currently examining a law on "energy transition" - the move towards green alternatives - which includes a plan to have seven million charging points around the country by 2030, compared with 14,000 today.

News of the initiative comes as the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, announced plans to ban diesel cars from the French capital by 2020.

In an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, she said the Mairie de Paris had already led by example by taking all of its diesel vehicles off the road in the past three months.

Recent pollution peaks in Paris have seen cars banned from the streets on alternate days based on their number plates, but Hidalgo described this as “absurd”.

She said: “We’re banning recent, low-emission cars because their plate ends in an odd number, while allowing even-numbered polluting cars to use the roads.”

The diesel car ban in 2020 could come with an exemption for the least well-off families, who cannot afford to replace their old vehicle, and who only use it occasionally.

Other proposals include restricting access to some main roads to low-emissions vehicles only – such as the Rue de Rivoli or Champs-Elysées.

More 30kph zones will spring up, and large parts of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th arrondissements could become “semi-pedestrian”, with only taxis, buses, delivery vehicles and residents’ cars allowed.