[SustainableTompkins] Visionary approach to making electric cars workable

[Jeff Gilmore]

Check out this video of a recent speech by Shai Agassi, founder of  
Project Better Place.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/03/18/video-shai-agassis-amazing-speech-on-the-future-of-electric-ca/

(You can fast forward about 5 minutes past the intro)

This is a startup with a business plan for how to make electric cars  
practical.  The general approach is:

Design electric cars with standardized batteries that can be swapped  
in and out quickly
Treat the batteries as a service rather than an object.  You sign up  
for battery capacity wherever and whenever you need it, and it is the  
company's job to figure out how best to provide it.  Two ways they do  
it are:
In town, provide electrical outlets at many parking places (with  
electricity billed back to the company and included in your service  
fee).
On highways, build a network of "swap stations", where you dive into a  
bay like a car wash and a mechanism removes the old battery and  
inserts a fully charged one in minutes.

This way, car companies are relieved of the risks and challenges of  
batteries and infrastructure.  In fact, Shai claims that in their  
initial rollout in Israel, their plan is like a cell phone plan:  If  
you sign up for a long enough period of time (in this case 6 years)  
they will give you the electric car for free.

They now have an official law in Israel that brings this plan into  
action, and they have an agreement with Renault/Nissan to build the  
cars.

I think this is exciting, as it addresses the problem from a  
systematic social/economic approach rather than a merely technological  
one.  And they have $200 million in seed funding in hand.

I used to work for this guy in my old job.  He is a fabulous  
communicator, (as you can see in the video), but not only that.  He  
has always demonstrated unusual clarity of vision and seems to laser- 
in on the key aspects of any problem.  He seems just the right guy to  
actually pull this off.

Jeff