TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Driving to a Better Place

Michael Steinhart | Date: 09-15-10 | Comments

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• Oil-independent cars aren't a pipe dream anymore, thanks to one entrepreneur and an electrical infrastructure test bed that spans an entire country.
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  Table of Contents:

  Driving to a Better Place Going Global Looking Forward

• Driving to a Better Place

   

  The Renault Fluence ZE is the first car model that conforms to Project Better Place's electrical protocol. It will be available in early 2011. 

  In 2005, SAP executive Shai Agassi wrote a position paper about cars powered by electricity. He was intrigued by a thought experiment, a theoretical challenge posed at a Forum for Young Leaders seminar in Switzerland. The challenge: Make the world a better place by 2030.

  "I decided the most important thing to do was to figure out how to take a single country off of oil," he recalled, in an interview with Dan Senor and Paul Singer, authors of Start-Up Nation.

  The idea of electric cars wasn't new, but a viable plan for making them as affordable, convenient and powerful as gas-powered vehicles was. Agassi imagined an electrical grid infrastructure that supported electric cars wherever they may be plugged in, and a regional system of "swap stations" where spent batteries could be dropped off and full batteries installed in the same amount of time as a gas station fill-up.

  Agassi felt that his home country, Israel, was a perfect test market. In Israel, 90 percent of car owners drive less than 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) per day, and all major urban centers are less than 150 kilometers (93 miles) apart. In other words, nobody needs to travel long distances by car. Phasing electric cars into this market would go a long way toward reducing oil dependency and reducing carbon emissions.

  With support from then-President Shimon Peres, Agassi took his idea to automakers and investors, and Project Better Place was born.

  Next: Going Global >>

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