Following in the footsteps of Daimler’s car2go car-sharing service, which mostly uses Smart Fortwos, Toyota is contributing no less than 70 of its two Lilliputian personal mobility electric vehicles to a car sharing and public transport test project in France.
The scheme is actually a partnership between the City of Grenoble, Grenoble-Alpes Metropole, EDF Group, Toyota and Citélib, with the service to get the highly-forgettable name of “Citélib by Ha:Mo” – the “Ha:Mo” bit comes from “Harmonious Mobility”.
No less than 70 Toyota i-ROAD and Toyota COMS will be used for the Grenoble project for a duration of three years, during which the little electric buggers will be charged at around 30 charging stations managed by Sodetrel (EDF Group).
The new car-sharing service will complement Citélib, the current car-sharing service of Grenoble, by allowing users to pick up one of the small EVs at one location and drop it off at another, while also being connected to the public transport system’s IT infrastructure.
Toyota’s own data management system will be in charge of the visualization and reservation of the vehicles, while also being integrated with Grenoble’s existing public transport IT system in order to offer route planning with the different types of transport, all while using your smartphone.
Operational starting with October, the car-sharing system is Toyota’s second “Ha:Mo” project and the first outside Japan.
By Alex Oagana
PHOTO GALLERY
