Francesco Portincasa, Digital Ecosystem Senior Manager of COIMA
Milan, 5 April 2022 - The ELEC3City electric mobility service was jointly announced by Volvo Car Italia President Michele Crisci, and COIMA Founder and CEO Manfredi Catella, at a press conference held at Volvo Studio Milano. The meeting was attended by the Mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, who underlined how an electric mobility service such as ELEC3City was interesting for Milan city managers, seeking sustainable development and its mobility.
ELEC3City is the first Italian example of electric car-sharing linked to a city district or neighbourhood and capable of making city car use easy and hassle-free. The service is intended for private individuals and companies that drive in the Portanuova area and provides an evolved and integrated response to the multiple travel needs of daily life of a public sensitive to sustainability issues. At the same time, it decongests traffic and reduces the district’s CO2 emissions.
ELEC3City provides the public with a fleet of 15 Volvo XC40 Recharge Single Motor full electric vehicles. The model has 231 hp and a range of 423 km. The cars are located in the Varesine Portanuova underground car park. The public can find them easily by following a series of signs. The service will be accessible through the Portanuova Milano App which can be downloaded from Apple and Android stores. Cars can be rented between 30 minutes and several days. After three and a half hours of use, there is an extremely advantageous daily rate. The service goes beyond the simple concept of car-sharing but does not provide for a car drop-off (the car must always be returned to the ELEC3City car park where it was picked up).
The project, which follows the installation in Portanuova of Power Stop, the first fast electric charging station in an Italian city, is part of a process that leads to the electrification of the entire district with a reduction of CO2 emissions - 600 electric rechargers will be installed in the district by 2022. These initiatives prove Portanuova’s role as Milan’s advanced urbanism which is being developed and managed by COIMA. Portanuova is an urban environment with a constant interaction between nature and architecture. The district, which is a candidate to become the world’s first LEED® and WELL® for Community neighborhood, has its green heart in BAM - Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano, the public park managed by the Riccardo Catella Foundation. Since 2019 BAM hosted a diversified programme of more than 200 annual events and cultural activities which disseminate the sustainability culture. Portanuova’s approach toward sustainability is aligned with COIMA’s ESG objectives, which follow the European Union's decarbonisation guidelines. All new developments will meet the 2050 2°C decarbonisation requirements and undergo ESG performance assessment using proprietary analytical metrics.
One of the ELEC3City stated objectives is to contribute to the decarbonisation of the Portanuova district. To understand the project’s effectiveness, some data based on a projection of the potential use of the service and its available fleet of 15 Volvo XC40 Recharge is significant. Assuming 80 per cent of the capacity is used and considering the mileage and electricity consumption features of the XC40 model, it is possible to estimate an average annual fleet mileage of about 240,000 km. Compared to a similar distance covered with internal combustion engine vehicles - for which the average emissions figure provided by UNRAE for new vehicles registered in Italy is 120 g/Km - the minimum CO2 saving will be around 30 tonnes.
From decarbonisation projections to experience, the data gathered so far on the Portanuova Powerstop recharging station is interesting. From the station opening (November 2021) to the end of March, 265 recharges were carried out for a total of 4,863 kWh. Based on the average distance travelled by an electric car (UNRAE data), this means around 22,000 km. Similarly, if the same distance had been covered with internal combustion engine cars, 3.5 tonnes of CO2 would have been produced.
COIMA Founder & CEO Manfredi Catella said: “In designing the various Porta Nuova phases, we have promoted sustainable mobility. This means we have created 120,000 square metres of pedestrian and bicycle space in the first phase. More than 12,000 square metres have been added on the axis leading to Fondazione Feltrinelli and another 20,000 square metres will be added in Porta Nuova Gioia. In addition, we have pursued initiatives like ELEC3City, which see innovation at the service of the environment.”