Free e-sharing project "village cars" in the Hunsrück continues

At the beginning of the project, eight Renault Kangoo Maxi ZEs with charging stations were made available at selected locations in the Hunsrück region. The offer was better received than expected: around 350 citizens have already registered as users and have covered a total of 180,000 kilometers in the past months. For district climate protection manager Frank-Michael Uhle, this is a clear signal:

“Electric mobility belongs in the countryside.”

Indeed, the numbers of the first round confirm the expectations of the project. The goal is to make the "practicality of electric mobility individually verifiable and experienceable” and to generally offer car-sharing in rural areas. This way, the current public transport service can be sensibly supplemented in the future. Because an adequate infrastructure, comparable to that of urban agglomerations, is hardly available, judges Uhle.

Commuter regions like the Rhein-Hunsrück district would benefit from this, continues the climate protection manager. There are about 70,000 private vehicles registered for 103,000 inhabitants. For a sustainable traffic transition, real alternatives are needed here to enable long-term CO₂ savings, demands Uhle.

The Communities Show Interest

Due to the positive response, the first local communities and citizens are ready to adopt and manage the system independently. Demand here also enables supply. The next two years will be pivotal in this regard. By the end of 2020, the electric Kangoos are to be distributed to eight new locations to give more residents the opportunity to become familiar with electric cars; and by the end of 2021 for a third and final time.

What does this mean?

An electric car costs 7,000 euros per year for leasing rate, software, and a 24-hour hotline. A manageable investment that could pay off. It's obvious that one needs to deploy larger measures for a real traffic transformation. But this pilot project has scalable model character, which can and should be broadly implemented.