Tel Aviv In A Twizy Over Car Sharing

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

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.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Schmitt trigger Schmitt trigger on Dec 19, 2012

    Hadn't seen it this way, but you are absolutely correct. Another way of seeing it is as a very-short-term-vehicle rental.

  • SCE to AUX SCE to AUX on Dec 19, 2012

    Good luck. This could never work in the US; we don't like sharing cars with our spouse, let alone complete strangers.

    • See 6 previous
    • SCE to AUX SCE to AUX on Dec 20, 2012

      @corntrollio Come to think of it, I have heard of ZipCar and Car2Go, but didn't really know what they were. I saw ZipCar once when visiting Philadelphia. Glad to hear it fits some people's needs; I suppose if I lived in the city I might use such a service. I'm a suburban kid; I rode a city bus once in Pittsburgh and once in NYC. I grew up with cars; I don't even know how to read a bus schedule, although I have ridden Chicago's Metra and Atlanta's MARTA and thought they were pretty good.

  • Pete Zaitcev Pete Zaitcev on Dec 19, 2012

    They are at war, and remember the wartime posters in the U.S.: "If you ride alone, you ride with Hitler"? Same thing: society is overstretched.

    • David C. Holzman David C. Holzman on Dec 19, 2012

      Partly that it's so crowded. If you ignore the Negev desert, which is most of the area but no-one lives there, I suspect the density is 2-3 times that of New Jersey, our most densely populated state.

  • El scotto El scotto on Dec 19, 2012

    Location, location, location. If you take public transportation to work you can get by with a Zipcar. I did it when my Escape was in the body shop. Trust me, two weeks worth of groceries are heavy.

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