Wasn't borne yesterday

You can now plug in your electric car in town, and charge up its batteries for nowt!

Look at it! Covered in smeary fingerprints already!

 You can read more about the installation here.

Something forceful and masculine about these things....

There is a new word in the French language - badger, to badge, describing the action of waving an object, such as a name badge, across a reader, to let you do something, such as to allow you to enter a room if you have the required level of security. Here you badge your SIEIL membership card over the little fan-shaped doodad at the top and the borne releases the socket so you can plug in.

Thus rendering those smelly polluting objects behind it redundant!

Now all we need is some users.

Note 1: if you have an electric cyclomoteur, don't plug it in here, it will probably blow up. Likewise your cordless drill.
Note 2: The borne was actually installed on Monday, not yesterday, which was Tuesday...

New Borne

La Nouvelle République of 28th January announced, under yet another pun-laden strapline, the installation of charging points for electric and hybrid vehicles (la voiture électrique accumule les bornes) in towns and villages across Indre et Loire. Just for once la France profonde would take the lead in a (debatable) environmental project, with 276 sets of double charging points installed by the end of the year, the first département to create such a resource.

This was not big news in the market place in Le Grand Pressigny where the work was already in progress.

Don't park your car here for fear of mighty retribution

The two parking spaces nearest to the Mairie now have a smart pair of steel bollards, a post with a sign indicating "electric vehicles only" and a wire sticking out of the ground with insulating tape on the end.

About to be borne

It's rather a cute sign, once you work it out.

Forbidden except... for something or other

The new emplacement has caused some disruption of the Thursday market, because it is right where the Limouzin Frères goat cheese stall usually is. So they have bumped along next to the fish wagon, while the Cheese Lady was tucked away behind Laurent Poupeau's butcher's van...

Waiting for a connection

When it's finished, it should look like this one, in Joué-lès-Tours... the latest in service.

Nicolas a découvert la dernière borne mise en service, à Joué-lès-Tours. - (Photo NR)

Nicolas, the young man in the picture above, has sold his old Renault 5 in favour of a Twizzy. Before, his budget was 165€ for petrol; now he pays 45€ to hire the battery. But he reckons that as long as the availability of charging points is inadequate, the market for electric vehicles will never take off. He is using a badge (free from le Syndicat intercommunal d'énergie d'Indre-et-Loire (Sieil)) which is managing the roll-out. The communes pay 20% of the 12,000€ cost (not including tax) of the installation. Meanwhile, during the hour it takes to charge the Twizzy's battery, Nicolas can take a stroll around the village, have a coffee, do a bit of shopping... la bonne bouffe for somebody!

The first person to spot someone using one of our charging points wins a jar of marmalade.