Concept cars and the development of the bleucar project

Many scholars are discussing signs and company strategies that seems to confirm that the transition to cleaner vehicles is starting. Freyssenet (2011) announced a new automobile revolution and Rifkin (2011) a third industrial revolution. How could industrial design be a field of study and discussion about ideas related to an automobile revolution? What are the links between an automobile revolution and a third industrial revolution? The prospective design approach would be used to analyse the new orientation taken in the automotive industry. Concept cars and new experiments are giving signs about the evolution of the automotive sector towards new forms of mobility. The Bleucar and Autolib in Paris, an innovative electric car sharing system is the outgrowth of an historical process. The paper examines how design of concept cars introduced new representations and changing social uses of the cars in the 1990’s. It will be described the first step of the Bleucar’s project, the design research, the actors and the companies involved in the project since 2005. Finally, the paper analyses actors and institutional interactions between public and private partners for setting up the Autolib mobility system in Paris. The conclusions present some reflections about the issue of new mobility systems for the automotive industry.