Electric vehicles: what we know about social leasing at 100 euros per month

Driving electric for the sum of 100 euros per month: Macron's campaign promise should soon become a reality. During the presentation of her roadmap for the first 100 days on April 23, Elisabeth Borne followed in the footsteps of the President, stating that she wanted to "facilitate everyone's access to clean vehicles, develop the necessary infrastructure and to support the conversion of the French automobile industry”. But then how? The idea is to set up a social leasing at a reduced rate to help French people with precarious status or who are highly dependent on four wheels by offering them to rent electric vehicles, the majority of which would be produced in France. However, we do not know the precise workings of this device as well as the conditions to be met in order to benefit from it. Le Figaro draws the outlines of this project.

Several socio-professional criteria should be taken into account to designate the beneficiaries of social leasing. First is household income. Indeed, "the most financially constrained households are the furthest from the electric vehicle" according to a study conducted by the NGO Transport and Environment (T

The device will be officially launched in the fall of 2023 and the first orders can be made in early 2024, via an online platform. “The goal is for it to be very simple,” assures the minister. The households concerned by the device will, according to him, have fewer costs to disburse when the device is launched, compared to the sometimes off-putting standards of current leasing.

Made in France electric cars should logically be in the spotlight: Renault Zoé and Twingo, Peugeot e-208 for city cars or the Citroën Ami for those without a license. Clément Molizon, general delegate of the national association for the development of electric mobility (Avere), adds that “Citroën will also develop a model in Spain next year”, which would allow “to go in the direction of integrating European manufacturing” and overcoming competition from models produced in China such as the Dacia Spring, the only model currently available for leasing for 100 euros per month. The Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, speaks of “a few thousand vehicles” in circulation from next year. Despite all these objectives, the observation is as follows: renting an electric city car currently costs around 150 euros per month in France.

In its calculations, the NGO Transport and Environment estimates that with the reindustrialization effort as well as the purchase aid that the State should provide, social leasing should cost "between 116 and 192 euros per month" for a segment A car (type Renault Twingo), "between 128 and 160 euros per month" for a segment B car (type Peugeot 208), and between "238 and 275 euros per month" for a segment C car (type Renault Megane). The bar of 100 euros therefore seems to be an Eldorado difficult to reach. However, as Clément Molizon reminds us, the question of the price of electric cars is "a question of economies of scale, in the sense that we do not yet sell enough models to be able to bring prices down". Ultimately, the more electric vehicles there are on lease, the more prices are likely to fall. It remains to be seen whether this system, which combines social vocation, environmental imperative and ambition to reindustrialize the country, is realistic.