(Yicai Global) July 24 -- Vincent Bollore, Chairman and Chief Executive of French transport and logistics giant Bollore paid a low-profile visit to China early this month and visited Alibaba Group Holding's headquarters in Hangzhou, during which both parties reached an agreement on strategic cooperation worldwide to jointly work on big data for electric vehicles as well as other sectors.

Alibaba will provide Bollore with cloud, big data and artificial intelligence services as well as content channels and solutions, including the use of Bollore's lithium batteries in Alibaba's data centers. Bollore's logistics unit will work with Alibaba's Cainiao network platform to jointly study the utilization of delivery hubs in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Both parties stressed potential cooperation opportunities in fields such as electric buses and vehicles, clean energy and carsharing and this may be a more important aspect for Bollore.

Bollore invested heavily in these fields and faced a risk of huge losses. Jointly launched by Bollore and the Paris government, the carsharing project Autolib has now been closed down and Paris will gradually suspend operations of all of Bollore's Blue Cars in the coming months.

Launched in late October, the Autolib system established electric vehicle rental stations in downtown and suburban areas of the French capital with over 100,000 users. The company had previously said the project would become profitable once its user base reached 100,000.

However, a financial document filed early this year showed that Autolib incurred a loss of EUR179 million (USD208 million), which has since widened to nearly EUR300 million. This prompted the Paris government to consider an audit at Bollore.

In response to the government's doubts, Bollore claimed that Autolib costs a lot more than expected and was loss-making. According to the agreement, Bollore is merely responsible for capital support of up to EUR60 million, and the excess is paid by taxpayers.

Last month, Elisabeth Borne, France's Transport Minister who accompanied French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on his visit to China, confirmed to Yicai Global that Autolib is about to be shut down.

"The Autolib project has been very popular since its launch. Therefore, the problem does not lie in the carsharing model itself but the business model of the company," she said. "We need to find a comprehensive alternative model, and the parties are currently negotiating for an alternative approach."

The Paris government has negotiated with multiple parties on alternative models for Autolib. The parties involved include both traditional auto giants such as Renault, Peugeot, BMW, Volkswagen, and Daimler, as well as innovative enterprises such as Drivy, Ubeeqo, Zipcar, Citiz, Communauto, and Car2Go. Insiders revealed that the initial alternative plan will be finalized by the end of this year.

This reporter believes that China's huge potential in the electric vehicles and the car-sharing sector has led Bollore to come to Alibaba to gain more insight. Both Alibaba and Baidu are making tremendous investments in autonomous driving and are committed to achieving 100 percent fully automated driving in the next five years.

Editor: William Clegg