The French postal service (La Poste) is testing electric cars to replace traditional petrol ones. The tests are starting in Brest and Rennes in Brittany with 22 new cars. The aim is to eventually have 8,100 electric vehicles out of a total fleet of 29,000 by 2025
The 100,000 or so postal workers in France travel some 760 million kilometers a year, on foot, by bicycle, scooter, or car, and since 2010, also on an electric quad bike called the Quadéo.
As driving an electric car is incredibly easy, postmen and postwomen only get a short training course of 15 minutes. The main differences are that they need to get used to the two pedals, the accelerator, and the brake, instead of changing gears, as there are no gears to worry about! The staff who have already tried the cars are amazed by how quiet they are.
At the moment, an electric car can only do about 100 km and the recharge requires 3h30 on a standard plug, so it can’t be used in rural areas.
Each car will save 3 tons of CO2 per year and per car.
Other French companies have followed this environmentally friendly idea and have ordered altogether 50 000 cars for the future.
Who knows? We will all be driving an electric car soon!
Our house sits on a 90 degree bend in a rural lane. When madame la factrice comes hurtling down our lane we generally hear her early enough to get out of the way before she flies around the bend. I worry that when her van becomes almost silent we won’t get the necessary early warning and there may be blood on the tracks…
On the other hand, if she is driving an electric vehicle she is likely to be driving slower than in her conventional van so we may just suffer a maiming instead of complete wipeout.
Do they really think that 15 minutes training will be enough?