Indianapolis is becoming something of an EV hotspot. The all-electric car sharing service BlueIndy opened for business this week. BlueIndy is owned by the Bolloré Group, a French conglomerate that operates car sharing services in several other cities, including the successful Autolib in Paris.

The new car sharing service uses the Bluecar, a two-door hatchback that’s built by Renault in collaboration with Bolloré. The Bluecar uses solid-state lithium metal polymer batteries built by another Bolloré division, and has a range of 120 miles.

BlueIndy currently offers 50 vehicles and 125 parking spaces around the city, each equipped with a charging station. Eventually the fleet will include 500 cars and up to 1,000 parking spaces at 200 BlueIndy stations.

BlueIndy memberships may be purchased by the day, week, month, or year. A standard membership costs $9.99 per month, and members pay 20 cents for each minute of use. To pick up a car, drivers simply swipe their card across the windshield.

Meanwhile, the mayor and city councilors of Indianapolis have agreed to settle a lawsuit over the city’s electric vehicle fleet.

The city plans to convert its entire non-emergency fleet to plug-in vehicles, and awarded a contract to California-based Vision Fleet to supply 425 EVs. City councilors cried foul and threatened to sue, saying that the contract should have been put up for competitive bids.

About half the cars have been delivered so far. Under the tentative deal announced last week, the purchase of the remaining 200 cars will go up for bids, and the council will drop its lawsuit.

Source: Green Car Congress, WFYI Indianapolis