Dubai has begun an ambitious new hybrid and electric-vehicle leasing venture, extending the emirate’s campaign to develop urban mobility and improve air quality with alternatives to exhaust fumes-emitting cars.
During an elaborate event today, the Al Toukhi Investments Company announced that Green Car Rental, a firm based in Dubai, is now ready to start renting its unique fleet, making it the first company in the region to lease hybrid and full-electric luxury vehicles.
“Nowadays everyone is concerned about the environment and how it suffers from pollution that is especially caused by cars,” said Engineer Mazen Al Toukhi, the Managing Diretor of
Green Car Rental Company.
Speaking to Alrroya.com following the roll-out, Al Toukhi said his company conceived the idea of renting clean, green cars, “in order to contribute to UAE’s broader campaign towards renewable and sustainable future.”
“The benefits in reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions are easy to see. For instance, driving 36,000 kilometres in a petrol powered car produces around 6.8 metric tonnes of CO2 while in a hybrid car the emissions are almost halved, producing only about 3.7 metric tonnes of CO2 over the same distance,” he explained.
No hassles of paying for gasoline and insurance
On cost implications, Al Toukhi promised to keep the rentals cheap and affordable.
The bet is that drivers needing rental cars will opt out of ownership in exchange for the convenience of an easy, clean transportation means, without the hassles of paying for gasoline, insurance and maintenance.
“We realised that most UAE motorists prefer luxurious cars coupled with the need for speed, and therefore we decided to include in our offers top-of-the-range vehicles including Ferraris, BMW and Mercedes and also Tesla Roadster, which is billed as one of the world’s only electric supercars. This is of course besides Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf, which are traditionally designed as hybrid and electrically powered,” the executive added.
But considering the questions of oil dependency and carbon emissions, he said, electric cars promise to bring energy savings where supposed fixes of the past, including car-pooling and campaigns to get people to use public transportation like the metro, have failed to make headway.
Electric vehicles, he noted, consume 30 per cent to 50 per cent less energy per kilometre driven than traditional internal-combustion vehicles, “so a large-scale conversion to electric cars could make sense.”
“The programme itself won’t immediately change people’s perception,” Al Touki said, “but it could go a long way toward breaking down barriers to the misconceptions attached to electric vehicles.”
New solar-powered charging points launched
Also for the first time in the region, the
Green Car Rental Company launched several charging system points, which utilise solar power to charge the 100 per cent electric cars.
“It is a new and unique concept for the Middle East, giving drivers the opportunity to use full-electric luxury vehicles without spending on electricity at all,” said Al Toukhi, adding that the idea is “to have customers trying out an electric car before committing to buying one.”
While expounding on the mechanisms of the vehicles Al Toukhi explained; “Hybrid cars are powered by a combination of petrol power and electric power, while electric cars run on electricity alone. The hybrids derive their electrical energy from an on-board battery pack, which is charged by the car’s petrol engine.”
When travelling at low speeds, a hybrid can operate on battery power alone, and if more power is required, the engine can kick in to help.
“Electric cars on the other hand, run completely on battery power and must be charged by plugging the car into an electric plug point,” he added.
In a test drive today along Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Road, one of the company’s rental car -Porsche Cayenne S hybrid - felt like a high-powered golf cart, an impression reinforced by its silent motor. Even on the cobblestone service-streets, the car felt smooth and was easy to handle. There are three settings for the automatic transmission, including drive, neutral and reverse.
In theory, renting out a car from the company should be quick, requiring only a deposit, locally accepted driver’s license, ID and credit card.
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