Car companies of all sorts – from manufacturers to vehicle sharing services – are jumping on board the electric vehicle bandwagon as they continue their steady march towards widespread use.

General Motors recently set itself the impressive and admirable goal of selling 500,000 electrified vehicles annually by the year 2017. (‘Electrified’ meaning that they have some way to power themselves electrically, though not necessarily with a full electric motor.) To reach this figure, the company is turning to smartphone applications to aid adoption of the vehicles by customers. Looking to improve drivers’ charging experiences and reduce the anxiety that may come from using this type of vehicle, the GM apps provide information about whether a destination can be reached at current battery charge levels, the location of nearby charging points and even games allowing drivers to compare their miles driven and gas saved to each other for various badges.

Car sharing services are getting into electric vehicles too. City CarShare, one of the largest car sharing organizations in the Bay area, just increased its share of electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid vehicles to 44% of its fleet. Through the use of electric and hybrid cars, they are preventing 80 million pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere each year but the nonprofit is not stopping there. According to City Carshare’s CEO, they are well on the way to meeting their goal of converting half of their fleet to electric or hybrid by 2015.