Episode 10: From Car Racing to Car-Sharing, with Circle's Eric Boullier

Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast

GUEST: Eric Boullier, CEO, Circle
ABOUT THIS EPISODE

"I switched from 400 kilometres per hour to 70 kph" - Eric Boullier, formerly Team Principal of the Renault and Lotus F1 teams, and Racing Director of McLaren F1, is now the founder and CEO of Circle, an all-new free-floating car-sharing start-up company using purpose-built electric vehicles.

Free-floating sharing is a term you hear in relation to e-scooters and e-bikes—using an app, the user finds the nearest e-scooter, for example, starts riding it and leaves it at their destination. But just as they found it in a random location, the user doesn't need to find a docking station to secure it when they’re done. They scan the QR code, maybe take a picture of the scooter, end the ride on the app, and they’re automatically billed for that ride.

But free-floating is relatively new to car-sharing.

Car-sharing has been tried in several cities in recent years, to varying degrees of success. What’s interesting about Circle is that instead of using an existing vehicle, Boullier and his team have decided to develop their own car. They’ve taken an innovative approach to the vehicle itself, and they’ve made a very bold decision on their battery strategy.

In this episode of Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast, Eric Boullier outlines why he thinks his new start-up, Circle, has found the right formula.
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