Today.Az » Weird / Interesting » Bolloré Bluesummer is a drop-top pleasure seeker
02 July 2015 [19:19] - Today.Az
If you’ve journeyed to Paris lately, you may have noticed swarms of Bolloré Bluecars on the Champs-Élysées. Or maybe you didn’t; they’re small, quiet and popular enough that they tend to blend. This summer, however, the Bluecar is stripping down for a trip to the beach.
The Bluesummer is the beach buggy version of the popular French electric. It takes the sleek, Pininfarina-designed Bluecar body, and gives it a coastal twist with Mediterranean-blue plastic panels, exposed hinges and roll bars in lieu of a roof. Like its urban counterpart, it’s a two-door four-seater, with fold down seats in the rear for cargo.
It maintains all of the specs that have made the Bluecar the most popular highway-capable electric in France – 100% electric, with a 50kW engine that can take it up to almost 70mph (110km/h), and a range of 120 miles between charges. That range is courtesy of a 30kWh lithium polymer (LMP) battery pack coupled with supercapacitors for regenerative braking and quick power delivery.
Bolloré, a global conglomerate with interests in everything from telecom to rubber plantations, originally brought in the Pininfarina design team simply to showcase technology developed by its Batscap subsidiary. But with this stylish sprite suddenly at their disposal, Bolloré launched the Autolib' car-sharing service, building networks not just of charging stations, but of GPS and on-board computers that calculate range, alter drive mode, map the ride and direct the cars to the nearest charging station. The runabouts also have a 24/7 help button, should a Bluecar not make it all the way to the plug.
Roughly half of the Bluecars currently on the road are in private hands, with the rest belonging to carshare schemes in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux and – coming later this year – the US midwest city of Indianapolis, Indiana. This summer, this bikini’d Bluesummer version will be part of several Riviera rental rosters. We can’t see cruising St Tropez in any other car. Except for maybe this one. /By BBC/
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