French entrepreneur offers motorists chance to drive green

PARIS, July 9 (Xinhua) -- Electric, hybrid, LPG, or biofuel-propelled cars... the green car market is booming as more and more people in France and around the world become aware of the adverse effects of fossil fuels on the environment.

The situation has been complicated further by the current specter of high crude oil prices. "Due to high fuel prices, people are being forced to take a second look at how they move from one place to another," according to a Paris-based car dealer. "Fuel efficiency has become the buzz word."

And in a move that just goes to show the extent of the ongoing craze, a French entrepreneur has moved on and launched a website www.2et4rouesvertes.com, which will be the first free site for advertising environmental friendly vehicles.

The idea of establishing such a site sprouted in the head of Claire Bertin, a 31 year-old mother, who had tried in vain to hire an electric car for her personal use. "I quickly learnt that it was not easy to find one on the Internet," she says.

The young woman has a long experience of working in a Paris-based car rental. Soon, she hired a webmaster to set up her site discreetly and as quickly as possible for fear of "the idea falling in the wrong hands."

In order to do this, the resident of Taillan-Medoc, a Paris suburb, approached the government and was given assistance through the Assedic mechanism set up to help budding entrepreneurs. The site opened three months ago and Bertin has set aside between 2 and 3 hours of her time daily to update it.

"I go through the classified pages of other media, especially the mainstream ones, in order to attract ads to my site," says the mother of two. The selection is strict. "I exclude all vehicles running on petrol or diesel," she says.

On the site, there are cars catering for all people and tastes. The prices range from 1,000 euros (about 1,550 U.S. dollars) for a Twingo running on LPG to a hybrid Lexus that is going for 52,900 euros. Each vehicle, usually accompanied by a photograph, is classified into four different categories.

"This largely depends on whether it is electric, hybrid, LPG or biofuel," according to the young mother, who says that her idea was inspired by the need to protect the environment and also promote fuel efficiency.

Nevertheless, Bertin admits that choosing what ads to host on the site is not always an easy issue. Only recently, she declined to post ads for a four-wheel-drive LPG and a Porsche running on bioethanol.

"I thought they consumed too much fuel to be regarded as ecological," she says of her decision, which attracted scorn from the sellers of the two guzzlers.

Currently, Bertin's site, which is still young in the business, is receiving over 3000 hits per day and has a list of more than 200 environmental vehicles, while a dozen sales have already been made.

For now, www.2et4rouesvertes.com is far from turning a profit and Claire Bertin, who has invested over 6,000 euros of her own savings in it, is still working for free.

But the young woman, who demonstrates a genuine concern for the environment, is placing her hopes in the future. She continues to hope that the budding site will soon attract advertisers, such as automakers and she has also plans to ask car dealers to pay.

In the meantime, the 31 year-old mother of two is working on the development of a new version of the site, which will place ads by region, mileage and budget.

But while the new version is set to be up and running in a few days, this young environmentalist is already busy with another project: the launch of site on a European scale, by making its translated version available in German, Italian and Spanish by September.