Electric Car Sharing Scheme

To the north of the Netherlands is the island of Terschelling. It is 88 square kilometres in size and has just one main road, 15 kilometres in all. That hasn't stopped the locals owning cars, the 4800 people who live there own about 2000 cars.

Obviously they do very little milage. Taking in the cost of ownership and depreciation, perhaps the most expensive cars per kilometre driven anywhere in the world.

Some thinking people have come up with a scheme. A pool of Nissan Leaf electric cars has been made available, eventually up to 100 of them. Any local - for a small user fee - can access a car. The ferry service can rent them to visitors too, provided the local residents aren't using them all.

The Nissan Leaf proving a hit

In an island such as Terschelling, car ownership is hard to justify on a financial basis. For a fraction of that cost, they can use theses community cars. Because it is cut off from the mainland, they won't be stolen either. If embraced, fuel consumption will be cut back substantiallly. I like lateral thinking.