Toyota i-Road and Grenoble set stage for test in electric ride-sharing

Toyota is testing ride-sharing. As simple as that may sound, the experiment indicates an innovative model for the future of urban transportation.

The Grenoble metro area could turn out to be the trial stage for a new city system in mobility.

The model, which gets under way next month, calls for electric vehicles connected to a public transport system; the result is a weave of route planning, reservations and drop-offs.

Five partners are sharing the vision: the City of Grenoble, the Metro Area, French electricity company EDF, Toyota, and local car-sharing operator, Cité lib.

How it will work: 70 Toyota cars with 27 charging stations will be available for city trips. The stations will be operated by Sodetrel, an affiliate of EDF.

Grenoble riders will be under a pricing plan called "3, 2, 1 euros."

Toyota i-ROAD

Users can pick-up one of the 70 vehicles and drop it off at any station near their destination without having to return it to the original pickup point. They will only be charged for the ride.

The 27 charging stations are in Grenoble, Fontaine, Gières, St Martin D'Hères, Seyssinet-Pariset, et La Tronche, close to tram, bus or train stops.

A smartphone, tablet or PC app shows users the location of cars in the city that have enough charge to be used.

Once a user returns the car to any station and plugs it back in, the vehicle's battery starts charging and the use charge ends.

As for the Toyota cars, 35 of the 70 will be the Toyota i-ROAD, a three-wheel personal mobility vehicle and the other 35 will be the Toyota four-wheel vehicle, Toyota Auto Body COMS.

Supporters say the implications for such a model stretch wider than rider convenience and even "clean" transport, reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality, and will affect city planning.

The service will eliminate the need for riders to search for a parking place and the compact size of the cars will affect planning for a future parking infrastructure.

How much will all this cost users? "Once the administrative and badging cost of 25 euros is paid, plug-in vehicle users will be able to use the charging service for free until 31 December 2014."

"From January 2015, a pricing schedule will be offered with costs varying between 2 and 5 euros for an hour of charge, depending on charging speed (normal or fast)."

"Charging time will be limited, especially during daytime hours, in order to discourage prolonged parking and allow maximum access to these parking spots," said the Toyota news release on Friday.

Perhaps the most important question of all is, Will this work? Starting October 1, the world will know; the trial entails a three-year period. During this time, project partners will collect data on technical aspects and user behaviour.

ESO VLT Captures Image of gaseous Exoplanet

This image from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) shows the newly discovered planet HD95086 b, next to its parent star. Image released June 3, 2013.

CREDIT: ESO/J. Rameau

A newly discovered gaseous planet has been directly photographed orbiting a star about 300 light-years from Earth.

Imaging alien planets is difficult, and this world may be the least massive planet directly observed outside of the solar system, scientists say.

A sharp new photo released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) today (June 3) depicts the suspected gas giant (called HD 95086 b) circling its young star (named HD 95086) in infrared light.

The star has been removed from the image to allow the planet — shown as a bright blue dot at the bottom left of the picture — to shine through.

HD 95086 b was sighted by ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Based on the planet's brightness, scientists estimate that it is only about four or five times more massive than Jupiter.

Most exoplanets are discovered via indirect means, such as detecting a dip in a star's light when a planet passes in front of it, blocking part of its face, or finding a slight wobble in a star's movement caused by the gravitational tug of planets orbiting it.

"Direct imaging of planets is an extremely challenging technique that requires the most advanced instruments, whether ground-based or in space," Julien Rameau, an astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics and Planetology in Grenoble, France and lead author of the study announcing the discovery, said in a statement.

"Only a few planets have been directly observed so far, making every single discovery an important milestone on the road to understanding giant planets and how they form."

Another photo from ESO shows the star and its planet in context with other stars in the southern constellation of Carina, the keel.

The planet orbits its star at about twice the distance from the sun to Neptune and about 56 times the distance between Earth and the sun. The blue circle in the photo represents the distance between the sun and Neptune.

This picture shows the sky around the young star HD 95086 in the southern constellation of Carina (The Keel). 

It was created from images from the Digitized Sky Survey 2.

CREDIT: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin