DRIVERS in the Tarragona-province seaside town of Reus can rent electrically-powered cars from the council's own fleet for a cheap price, and recharging points have been set up around the municipality.
Similar to Madrid's Car2Go scheme – and other, similar applications in the capital including Bluemove, Respiro and Emov - Reus town council's network includes 10 cars fuelled by electricity, bought to replace the older 'company' cars used by staff and politicians.
At least five of these will be loaned to residents when they are not being used for public administration duties, although if none of them are required at a given moment, up to the entire fleet may be made available for hire.
As yet, Reus is not clear whether it will link up to the relatively-new car-pooling companies such as Über and BlaBlaCar, or whether they will be make the vehicles available on an ad hoc basis.
Either way, the scheme is a pioneering one in Spain, and designed to ease the taxpayer's costs of councillor transport as well as contributing to cleaner air by offering cars to residents which do not require petrol or diesel.
A total of 19 recharging points have been set up in 11 parts of the town, with the capacity to fill up the batteries of up to 26 vehicles at once.
So far, the on-street battery-chargers have only been in use by the 141 residents in Reus who own electrically-powered cars of their own.
Residents who hire electric cars from Reus council will only pay a fee per kilometre to cover the depreciation of the vehicle caused by its increased mileage.
Valencia, Madrid and Barcelona city councils' mobility and transport departments have said they are 'impressed' with the idea, although they do not currently have any similar schemes on the table themselves – but if Reus' council car-hire network takes off, these left-wing-run metropolitan areas may be inclined to consider doing so one day.
The Balearic island of Formentera, which has barely 12,000 inhabitants, has decided to follow suit in terms of replacing its municipal 'company' car fleet with electrically-powered vehicles.
Whilst the island authority does not plan to let these out to residents, electric cars will help keep the air cleaner in an area where the majority of tourists are those who seek to enjoy the natural beauty of Formentera's countryside and its famous mineral mudbath beaches, a high number of whom are day-trippers on ferries from Ibiza, Dénia (Alicante province), Valencia and Barcelona.
Photograph from the Companies and Business Department of Reus town council
