In light of the news that ExxonMobil has an all-electric car sharing and rental program with Electrovaya, we have just one word for the company: Huh? Don’t get us wrong, an all-electric car sharing and rental program sounds like a great idea, a long overdue idea, in fact, but when it’s being presented by the very same company that just made headlines for the fact that it funds lobby groups that try and dispel global warming as a myth, the message can seem a bit mixed.

The electric car sharing and rental service, called AltCar, is being offered at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore, Maryland and is being sponsored by ExxonMobil, who’ve partnered with Electrovaya for the cars themselves, which run entirely on Electrovaya’s Lithium Ion SuperPolymer® battery, and look like your average all-electric vehicle (the word “cute” comes to mind) and can seat five passengers. Baltimore residents and tourists can rent the electric cars to use for the day as they tool around the city and experience the electric-car feel. ExxonMobil has also developed an exhibit center about the program for the Maryland Science Center. But an exhibit on gas-free vehicles from a company that’s been giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to anti-climate change researchers (who others in the scientific community have attacked for publishing “misleading and inaccurate information about climate change“) seems hypocritical at best and calls to mind a new form of greenwashing wherein a non-environmentally conscious company attempts to change their image with just one publicized action.

All of it seems to raise questions about whether a good green deed done for the wrong reasons is still a positive step. After all who can really argue that an all-electric car sharing and rental program isn’t a good thing, even if the company sponsoring it doesn’t want you to believe in the climate change electric cars are being designed to combat.

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