PARIS — He is the French billionaire who is the chairman and biggest shareholder of the media giant Vivendi.
But Vincent Bolloré has a side bet: Autolib, the electric-car-rental business that has become popular in Paris and other parts of France. And now he is working to bring a similar service to London — and even to Indianapolis, if all goes according to plan.
In London on Friday, Mr. Bolloré introduced the new model of electric cars that he hopes to put on the city's streets by the end of the year. The new vehicles are identical to his Bluecars, as they are known in Paris, except for their right-side steering wheels and red London-bus color.
The London rollout is part of Mayor Boris Johnson's effort to make the city the electric vehicle capital of Europe. For Mr. Bolloré, a 63-year-old Paris native, it is his own further attempt to demonstrate the viability of electric cars and batteries — particularly batteries — as a key component of the green-energy transportation future.
"We regard the U.K. as a global hub for the creative industries," Mr. Bolloré said in a statement before the event. Those industries, he said, include "clean-transport solutions."
The London foray follows by four years the introduction of his Autolib e lectric car-sharing project in Paris, its suburbs and two other cities. More than 3,500 of the cars are in service in France, driven by people who pay by the hour before returning them to one of the Autolib network's nearly 5,800 curbside recharging stations.
It is all done through membership and credit cards, similar to how Zipcar operates in many cities — but with the extra step of plugging the cars back in afterward.
Expanding into London, which already has plenty of transportation and car-hire options, has proved a greater challenge than Paris for Mr. Bolloré. His company has spent more than a year trying sort out the electric-grid logistics and win approvals from the dozens of local-borough governments that have jurisdiction within the city.
Mr. Bolloré's company has the contract to operate a network of electric charging stations that various battery-powered cars in London will be eligible to use — and with which his own car service will have to compete.
But building an international business in short-term electric-car rentals is not the main goal.
Mr. Bolloré made his personal fortune, estimated at $7.3 billion, mainly through his family-owned industrial conglomerate, the Bolloré Group, one of whose companies designed and produces the batteries that power his rental vehicles. His bigger aim — and possibly even more quixotic quest — is to demonstrate that those ba tteries can compete with rival products made by industry giants like Panasonic and LG Chem, and to persuade other carmakers to adopt them for their own fleets of clean-energy vehicles.
Bolloré Group's electrical storage devices are known as lithium metal polymer batteries. The company declined to discuss the cost, but high-tech batteries are a major reason that electric vehicles tend to be more expensive than cars with internal combustion engines.
Bolloré Group executives argue that its solid-state design makes it much safer than the standard lithium-ion batteries used in Nissan's Leaf and Tesla Motors' Model S, which contain flammable liquid electrolytes. They also argue that it will eventually surpass the lithium-ion battery in its ability to operate between rechargings.
"They definitely have an interesting technology," said Yasmina Barin, an analyst at the Swiss bank SYZ, said of Mr. Bollore's company. "The question is whether this technology is massively superior to the ones on the market. That is not determined yet."
Mr. Bolloré, though, tends to see his endeavors as propelled by history and destiny. In an interview, he recounted from his office in Vivendi headquarters, with views of both the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, that his family "has known three kings, one emperor and 24 presidents of the Republic."
He has personally known a few of those, including former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who created a stir by celebrating his 2007 election victory with a three-day stay on Mr. Bolloré's 600-foot yacht.
The Bolloré Group last year posted revenue of €10.6 billion, or $12 billion, and net income of €403 million. Besides its investments that include a 14.5 percent stake in Vivendi, which owns Universal Music Group, Bolloré group holds majority control over Havas, the multinational advertising and public relations company.
So far, though, the Bolloré company behind the electric vehicles and batteries, Blue Solutions, has made no money. Last year it lost €5.7 million on sales of €97.2 million.
But the quest continues. The company's electric Bluebuses shuttle visitors from the Place Charles de Gaulle in Paris to the newly opened Fondation Louis Vuitton, under a private contract. Soon, Bluebuses will begin operating under a public contract with Paris's transport authority as part of a four-year trial to replace an existing bus line.
In all, Mr. Bolloré has invested more than €3 billion in his battery-powered vision.
"It was extremely risky," said Jean Bothorel, author of "Bolloré: A Family History." "That's the way Mr. Bolloré works: When he launches or purchases a business, he goes all out to make it work."
In Paris, users can sign up for an annual Autolib subscription for €120, then check out the tiny vehicles at a kiosk or online, paying €5.50 per half-hour. The service has been popular with young people who cannot, or will not, spend money owning cars and others who would rather avoid parking and maintaining cars in a crowded city.
Christophe Arnaud, managing director for BluePoint London, the Bolloré Group company that won the contract to operate the recharging network in the British capital, said London prices would probably be slightly more, to account for London's higher living costs.
Perhaps the most counterintuitive venue for Mr. Bolloré's e-vehicle projects is Indianapolis, home of the United States� �� most famous fossil-fueled auto race.
But Hervé Muller, president of Bolloré's BlueIndy unit, said the project had the support of the Indianapolis mayor, Greg Ballard, whom he said had taken a personal interest in electric vehicles and public transport as a way to improve life in his city. The local utility, Indianapolis Power & Light Company, is also a partner.
"The goal is to make Indianapolis a showcase for other U.S. cities," Mr. Muller said. "Paris is a wonderful showcase, but it's a little far away."
The Indianapolis project has had its share of bumps, including the refusal of Indiana state utility regulators to back a tax on electricity bi lls to help pay for it. But after Bolloré and the city agreed on the funds, the project is now going forward. Mr. Muller said he expected it to begin operating by the end of summer.
Mr. Bolloré is not alone in seeing the potential in solid-state batteries. Others with products in various stages of development include Seeo, backed by Samsung Ventures; Sakti3, supported by General Motors; and Quantumscape, with support from Volkswagen.
But none of them are taking Mr. Bolloré's route of integrating production of batteries and vehicles, and creating a car-sharing program to demonstrate their viability.
"He's pursuing something different from wha t everyone else is doing," said Cosmin Laslau, an analyst at Lux Research in Boston, adding that the strategy has put him "ahead of the curve" in some respects.
The problem, Mr. Laslau said, is that currently there is no real performance advantage for solid-state batteries. Lithium-ion technology has a 25-year head start, he said, and will continue to benefit from improvements in operating voltage and storage for some time. "That will make lithium-ion a moving target, very hard to beat," he said.
So far, none of the large electric vehicle makers have signed on to Mr. Bolloré's technology. Tesla and Panasonic announced last year that they would build a $5 billion "Gigafactory" to make lithium-ion batteries in Nevada. The Renault-Nissan alliance, which offers the broadest range of electric vehicles, has gone with LG Chem and Automotive Energy Supply for their lithium-ion batteries. BMW's i3 relies on Samsung SDI.
Mr. Laslau predicted that it would not be until the 2020s that solid-state batteries would begin to reach their full technological potential and make an impact on the market.
The question is how much patience Mr. Bolloré will have to wait for his battery side bet to pay off.
"If he gets bored and cuts it off," Mr. Laslau said, "it can't survive."
Source:
Vincent Bolloré's Long Bet on Solid-State Batteries for Electric Cars
