25.1.2013 Sponsored Video: Car sharing in Berlin

Fully Charged, a series of online green-tinged shows hosted by Robert Llewellyn, has focused its latest episode on car sharing in Berlin.

There is a well established car sharing network in Berlin, with a user-friendly system to show members which cars are available to them and where they are.

Electric cars are being increasingly used in car sharing schemes; mainly as they are simple to drive in urban areas, can be recharged whilst not in use and produce zero emissions whilst being driven.

Car sharing can seriously reduce transport costs when compared with privately owning a vehicle. Membership to car sharing schemes allows a user to have access to a car whenever they need, and they are not normally too far away.

As Llewellyn comments in the preview video below: "At any one moment in time, 90% of all the cars in the world aren't being used and it looks like, in Berlin, they're trying to find ways to get around that."

The cost of membership to a scheme works out considerably less than the average cost of owning, taxing, maintaining, servicing, insuring and refuelling a privately owned car over a year.

By introducing electric cars into the scheme then the added benefit of zero tailpipe emissions is introduced. Incorporating electric vehicles into car sharing fleets also exposes more to the benefits of this relatively new powertrain technology.

Allowing more people to experience them is likely to encourage electric vehicle acceptance as a genuine alternative to combustion engine powered cars.

Sponsored by Channel Flip