Elbnb, the platform that connects travellers in electric cars with citizens willing to share their home charging point for a fee, makes its debut in Sweden.
In recent years, the Airbnb portal has enjoyed considerable success as an online platform that connects tourists and travellers looking for accommodation or a room for short periods with people who have extra space to rent out. Taking note of its widespread appeal, in Sweden they have imitated the format, giving it a "green" twist — that is, dedicating it to charging points for battery-powered vehicles. The result is Elbnb, the latest frontier of the sharing economy, which promises to make it easier to get the most out of a low-emission car and access the charging network.
Renting out your home's electrical socket for an hour, a night or a day in Sweden is now possible thanks to the platform elbnb.se, promoted by carmaker Renault to connect drivers looking for a charging point for their battery-powered vehicle with private individuals willing to share their home charging station. Travellers can access the smartphone application and browse a map of citizens participating in the initiative, seeing in real time the location, capacity and costs of the nearest "refuelling" stations. Opening hours and rates are set by the residents themselves. At present, in the urban areas of Stockholm and Gothenburg — that is, in the southern part of the country — there are already more than 1,200 stations open to everyone.
Sweden has traditionally been receptive to alternative mobility — having trialled the world's first electric motorway, pioneered the conversion of lorries into low-emission vehicles similar to trolleybuses, and ranking third in Europe for registrations of low-environmental-impact cars. It is a nation at the forefront of the sharing economy, given that the Scandinavian people appear particularly inclined to move beyond the traditional concept of ownership in favour of paid sharing of services, thereby optimising resources and allowing anyone to access services that would otherwise be difficult to use.
Elbnb is open to all electric vehicles, not necessarily Renault ones, and aims to encourage the renewal of the vehicle fleet by phasing out traditional internal combustion cars in favour of new low-emission models. This goal forms part of the broader objective of having exclusively battery-powered cars on Swedish roads by 2030, overcoming what is currently the greatest obstacle to the spread of electric mobility: the absence of a widespread charging network.