The first all-electric car club in the UK — the E-Car Club — is going to be experiencing some rapid growth this year, based on recent reports.
The club is apparently now set to increase its fleet by roughly 100 vehicles before the middle of 2015 — which means that the car club will have grown its fleet numbers more than 7-fold in just ~18 months.
To be exact, the E-car club is within the very near future going to be increasing the fleet from 15 vehicles to 60 — with another 50 expected to be added sometime during the next ~6 months, across its locations in the South East, London, and the Midlands.
For those that haven’t heard of the club/company before — it launched in October 2013 in east London. At the time of launch, it was offering only Renault ZOE and Fluence electric vehicles (EVs) to residents & businesses.
The company now offers higher end models such as the Nissan LEAF as well — and is planning to start offering “light commercial vehicles” such as Nissan eNV200s and Renault Kangoo ZEs sometime in the near future as well.
The club currently has roughly ~700 members (+ 15 business customers) based on figures that it has publicly shared. Members pay from £5.50 an hour and up to use EVs parked in dedicated charging spots.
The company has so far been pretty successful, hence the upcoming expansion — which is being funded by more than £1 million raised via investors. This figure reportedly includes a £500,000 investment from the Centrica-backed social impact fund Ignite.
The latest influx of vehicles is being provided by fleet services company Alphabet, which is supplying 35 electric vehicles — 23 Renault ZOEs, 5 Nissan LEAFs, and 7 Renault Kangoo ZE vans.
Image Credit: E-Car Club