- The city of Palermo recently opened southern Italy’s largest public car-share service.
- There’ll be 24 of Renault’s all-electric city cars, ZOE, in service in the Sicilian capital.
- The service is run by the city of Palermo in cooperation with Amat, Renault and Enel.
CAR-SHARE SERVICE RUN BY CITY OF PALERMO
The new service was opened on 7 October 2015 at a ceremony presided by Palermo’s mayor Leoluca Orlando. The Palermo electric car-share service is part of Amat’s Demetra project, which aims to reduce traffic in the city centre by means of an integrated car-sharing platform. Under the partnership, Enel installed sixteen 22 kW charging stations at strategic points throughout the city. The choice of an electric vehicle contributes to preserving the artistic and cultural Arab-Roman heritage of Palermo, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site in July 2015.
ZOE, AN ELECTRIC CAR IDEAL FOR CAR-SHARING
The 24 Renault ZOEs in the car-sharing service will be available in five of the city’s carparks: Piazza Massimo, Piazzale Ungheria, Via Malta, Piazza Ignazio Florio and Viale della Libertà. The service will be extended to three more carparks by the end of 2015.
ZOE is a shining example of Renault technological innovation; the car’s development programme spawned more than 60 patents. This all-electric car is ideal for everyday city use. And customer satisfaction among the 30,000 Renault ZOE drivers worldwide stands at 98%. Renault ZOE is powered by a 65 kW electric motor and boasts a range of 210 km (with the Q210 power unit) or 240 km (with the R240) under the NEDC certification cycle, which represents from 100 to 170 km under typical real-life driving conditions.
At the Palermo charging stations it takes just an hour to recharge the Renault ZOE batteries (to 80%). For compatibility with the city’s car-sharing system, the Sicilian ZOEs are fitted with smartcard readers.
Electric cars make an excellent choice for car-share services, and Renault ZOE serves in a number of other car-share systems across the planet, including Comos in Malaysia, E-car Club in the UK and LetsGo in Denmark.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES TO COUNTER CLIMATE CHANGE
Renault is the pioneer of affordable all-electric vehicles, and the only automaker to offer a full range of electric models. For Renault, the electric vehicle is an eminently viable solution to combat global warming. Because they do not burn fossil fuels, electric vehicles emit no CO21. Very specifically, without the electric vehicles that Renault has sold so far, an additional 115,000 tonnes of CO2 would have been emitted into the atmosphere, and an additional 230,450 barrels of oil burned (average per year2). The Renault-Nissan Alliance is official partner of COP21, the United Nations summit on climate change; a fleet of 200 Alliance electric vehicles, including 100 Renault ZOEs, will be ferrying delegates between Paris and Le Bourget from 30 November to 11 December 2015.
1 Zero atmospheric emissions of CO2 and pollutants under NEDC certification cycle, excluding emissions caused by abrasion of wear parts.
2 Comparison with vehicle of equivalent category, with data calculated from figures provided by CPDP (Comité Professionnel du Pétrole).
