Brussels Welcomes Zen Car, an Electric-Vehicle Carshare Fleet

During March, Zen Car will launch a fleet of 29 electric vehicles in Brussels.  The vehicles can be returned across the city at one of fifteen charging stations.  The company will charge a 40 euro initiation fee, along with a monthly membership fee of 6 euro.  Vehicles can be rented for 7 euro per hour.  Zen Car will be 100% electric vehicles, adding to Brussels' effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: www.fastcompany.com

Zen Car is not the only all-EV effort in Europe.  All-EV Carshare startups are popping up in Paris as well as in Denmark.  Fast Company's article has more:

The Autolib' Project in Paris will unroll a somewhat larger-scale project over the course of the coming year. In late December, it was announced that the electric Bluecar had won the market for the Autolib' project, itself inspired by Paris's bike-sharing service, Velib'. With Autolib', some 3,000 cars will be available at about 100 hire points. The EV company Better Place has also experimented with EV car sharing in Denmark, where it partnered with a commuter train service to offer electric-cars-for-hire at train stations.

America has experimented far less with EV's in carsharing.  Although the recent releases of the Leaf and Volt, should begin to breakdown the barriers to entry as charging stations and consumer familiarity increase.  Fast Company reported Zipcar's recent and past activity with EV's:

Though Zipcar introduced an all-electric Citroen C1 into its fleet in 2009, hybrids are more common that full-on EVs, even in forward-thinking markets like San Francisco. A few weeks ago, Zipcar said eight new plugin hybrid electric Priuses would enter its fleet, meaning Zipcar customers would actually be beta-testing the car before it comes to market.

Link to original article by David Zax at Fast Company.