- 2,100 electric car for French governmentGeorg Schwalbach (GS1311) / Car Photos / CC BY-NC
The French government has agreed to buying 2,000 ZOE and 100 Fluence, two of four electric car offerings from Renault. Now the local government brings in electric cars to curb their energy budget deficit.
We can only applaud Renault for having made the jump to electric cars early in the game. To date Peugeot and Citroen are rebadging Mitsubishi i MiEV, but that is the only real local competition. These vehicles will be ordered over three years as part of the call for bids launched in October 2012, where Renault positioned ZOE in the “Versatile 4-seater electric vehicle” category and Fluence Z.E. in the “Compact electric sedan” category.
Renault Electrics. As I mentioned above, Renault has an impressive display of electric cars ranging from a small but brilliant one to two seater called the Twizy, a 5 kW without license, 15 kW electric motor somewhat covered vehicle. Then comes the ZOE, a small compact, followed by the Fluence and finally the Kangoo, the professional cargo van electric car.
While the European have a different electric car challenge there, a few things work in their favor. Gasoline is twice as expensive here but at the same time they have smaller fuel efficient gasoline engine that put out a relatively high amount of horsepower per displacement. Bringing in a new technology that is expensive compared to one fairly affordable and ready-to-use, an electric car is a tougher call. All in all, in both cases whether here where range is an issue or there price, an electric car does best in cities.
I propose from now on we do not compare electric cars to what gasoline cars do fairly well, but the other way around. From now one let’s see how a gasoline car does in city traffic compared to an electric car. In the meantime, congratulations Renault for getting an early start with you four electric cars.
