After launching a successful bicycle sharing service, Tel Aviv is looking to launch an electric car program using the same model, as a means of reducing private car ownership.

While Better Place, Israel’s best-known electric car startup, has grander ambitions about a word of zero-emissions motoring, the concerns or Tel Aviv are much simpler. Ha’Aretz reports that the car sharing program was envisioned as a solution to the typical problems surrounding urban mobility.

Ido Shamir, director of the Tel Aviv-Yafo Economic Development Authority, said car-sharing plans are attractive mainly to people who travel infrequently, “such as families that already have one car,” adding, “It reduces the number of vehicles and air pollution and frees up parking spaces.”

While several companies are expected to compete for the tender, the Renault Twizy is an obvious choice for the program. Already proven in car-sharing programs in Paris and other locales, the Twizy also benefits from Renault’s tie-up with Better Place – including their proprietary battery swap technology.

Recently, for instance, Renault launched a new service in the Paris suburb of St. Quentin that allows users to rent a Renault Twizy and park it in any legal parking space. When the battery runs low a company employee swaps the car for one with a fully charged battery.

Renault will start selling their Twizy electric vehicle in the United Kingdom, and the new vehicle is causing some headaches for UK regulators, who will have to establish a new vehicle category for it.

Limited to 28 mph, the Twizy would be classified as a new type of quadricycle due to its small size and 772 lb curb weight. 16 year olds would have to pass some kind of knowledge and practical exam, but they wouldn’t need a driver’s license to operate a Twizy.

While the Twizy would only cost $9,863, Renault’s Andy Heiron said that insurance premiums (which are exorbitantly high for young drivers in the UK) could be as high as $6363 for drivers under the age of 18 – though they would be heavily reduced as drivers got older. As novel as the concept of a city car for young people may be, the astronomical insurance figures will kill this thing long before the goofy appearance, or the reduced costs of a scooter begin to come in to play.