Wanted!

If you want an electric car, then go make it yourself… This is a little how the French group La Poste viewed the situation when it announced its intention to replace part of its automobile fleet by vehicles running on electricity. The stakes were hoisted even higher by the fact that 100,000 mail delivery officers in France cover some 760 million kilometres every year. The group’s first stage thus consisted in launching an industrial survey on the acquisition of non-polluting transport services. But when you open the catalogues of major automobile makes from Europe or elsewhere, you will come up with… nothing. Not a single car running exclusively on batteries. Sometimes you might see a marginal product, but nothing that can be used massively in a large-scale fleet. “Manufacturers are nervous about offering a finished product,” states Muriel Barneoud, Manager of Major Programmes and Mail Modernisation at La Poste. This is not an isolated case.
In the principality of Monaco, Dimitri De Andolenko, Purchasing Manager at Monte-Carlo SBM, explains that despite efforts undertaken to put in place policies in favour of clean vehicles, “we come across problems, notably with maintenance”, referring to the lack of training of mechanics in electric models. “On our part, we wish to replace thermal energy with electrical energy. And although the R&D of manufacturers is altogether exciting, it focuses on a time scale that does not suit us. At this moment in time, they have nothing to offer,” exclaims Dimitri De Andolenko. The La Poste group has tackled the problem head-on. “We have picked up components for electric vehicles and offered them to manufacturers. Our call for bids will soon come to a conclusion with Fiat and PSA,” announces Muriel Barneoud. In 2009, electric bicycles, quads and cars bearing the La Poste logo will thus make an appearance.