British company offering electric cars for rent
Over in the British isles where they still use the beta version of the language, they refer to renting a car as hiring a car. Now a new company called ElectricCarHire is making, wait for it, electric cars available for hire. The cars are available for terms ranging from three to twenty-four months at prices starting at about $700 per month at the current exchange rate. Renters (or is that hirers?) who opt for longer terms get a reduced rate for as low $600 per month. After six months customers have the option to buy the car at a currently undisclosed price.
ElectricCarHire will be offering the Sakura Maranello4 which is a 2 seat Italian built electric city car. The Sakura has a range of about 45-60 miles and a top speed of just under 30 mph. As a result of these operational limits, the company is currently only offering this car, to customers in London who are inside of the M25, which is the main motorway that circles the entire London Metropolitan area. Even with the high price and limited performance this could still be a viable option in London where traffic congestion is a major issue, and fuel is expensive. The company website shows a comparison of $0.19/mile for a gas car (which corresponds to a 30 mpg at $6/gallon) vs about $0.03/mile for the electric. Apparently many car parks in London are now offering free electric charging stations which could lower operating cost even more.
[Source: ElectricCarHire via Hugg.com]
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