There’s a lot of rumors about mobility services market. Many small scale projects are

now leaving space to real international businesses all around cities. Few players are growing fast within this new market and Autolib’ (company launched by French entrepreneur Bollorè) is one of the most interesting case studies. We met Cedric Bollorè during his participation to the Mobilitytech Forum in Milan and it has been the occasion to unveil some  future strategies.

The starting point was always the same, to change urban mobility, reducing private cars in favour of public vehicles to be used occasionally. But the company looked ahead, offering huge numbers of all electric cars, to let people use them even for one way trips, with dedicated parking slots all around the city. The service started last December the 5^th in Paris with 250 stations that increased to 680  and will reach more than 1000 parking areas next year. Almost 2.000 cars are available in city centre and the plan is to reach 3.000 units, the most integrated electric vehicle fleet in European cities. The car named Bluecar has been designed by Pininfarina, and has built in Turin. It can count on 250 km range, comfortable 4 seats and the dimension of a Panda with modern accessories. Autolib’ is a commercial success story because there are more than 40.000 membership, whose 13.500 are premium (more than an year membership).

Citizens like the service and it helps in a concrete behaviour changing in urban mobility, considering there have been 600.000 rentals. 90% of trips are one way, and take about 42 minutes within urban area. The plan is to growth significantly, extending the service from the 47 up to 81 cities. “We are looking at other countries to export the service – says mr. Bollorè – and we also look at Italian market as an interesting opportunity. Autolib’ doesn’t require necessary funding from local cities, but mainly administrative support and cooperation in introducing the service.” Would it be the right opportunity to make small Italian car sharing more competitive and attractive?

Italian version of the article has been published on International Business Times