The Electric Car

Some years ago a movie called "who killed the electric car" came out. This movie exposed the failed attempt of General Motors in their 1996 release of an electric car (the EV-1). In the movie / documentary frustrated customers (who fell in love with their test product) made extraordinary efforts to prevent GM from retrieving the car from the market.Now, 12 years later we face a different reality. Oil prices are up and the market consensus is that they will stay up. People are more "enviro-conscious". And battery technology has come a long way.Since I am writing from Israel I thought it would be appropriate to present the highest profile greentech project in this land (and perhaps one of the most ambitious greentech projects in the world). Shay Agassi is a well respected entrepreneur who was involved in the software giant SAP. He presented (and leads) this project to the Israeli government and to Renault-Nissan and "Project Better Place" was born.

This project intends to build a network to allow for electric cars to charge in public places as well as special stations to interchange batteries. Project Better Place coordinates efforts between government, car manufacturer and battery OEM to establish the first big scale market test for electric cars.

The best way to understand this innovative business model is to "hear it from the horse's mouth". Here is Shay Agassy presenting his "baby' in Washington...



It takes guts to jump into this kind of venture. I don't know if Project Better Place is going to succeed, it certainly has its great obstacles to overcome before we see concrete results.

One thing is certain, whoever allows the world to significantly reduce its oil dependency and the political and economical consequences that this implies will be paraded as a savior and a hero (for most nations).

Reporting directly from the holy land I sign out for now and say "SHALOM" !