Who brought back the electric car?
Articles, Nu Magazine - October 9, 2008
Amidst perpetually rising gas prices and fears of depleting oil reserves, an American-Israeli entrepreneur has set out to revive the electric car industry, whose failure to gain corporate and consumer support was lamented in the 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?
In an age of increased focus on environmental sustainability and renewable energy sources, 39-year-old software engineer Shai Agassi believes the answer to our energy woes is to divert dependency from gasoline-powered vehicles and to an electrical model, according to a January 21, 2008 report in The New York Times.
Agassi’s company, Project Better Place, has its headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. However, the entrepreneur is partnering with Renault-Nissan to bring the new electric car technology to Israel first, which he believes is a good test-site for the vehicle because of its small size and high gasoline taxes. Renault-Nissan will provide the cars while Project Better place will manufacture the lithium-ion batteries needed to power the vehicles and the recharging centers and battery exchange stations that will need to be set up around the country.
Operating on a payment plan similar to that of cell phone providers, the cars themselves will be subsidized, with the consumer paying a monthly fee for expected mileage. The battery will need to be recharged after approximately 124 miles, either at stations scattered throughout Israel or at home overnight. Agassi estimates the batteries will last through 1,500 charges, or roughly 150,000 miles, the average life of a gasoline-powered car.
Agassi and his partners told a reporter for the Times that cars powered by electricity will provide a cheaper alternative for consumers, who have been paying upwards of $6 per gallon in Israel in recent months. The Israeli government will be offering tax breaks to purchasers until at least the year 2015, allowing them to buy an electric car and operate it for half the price of a gasoline model.
There is an economic incentive in using electricity to power a vehicle, Agassi claims, because of the fluctuating price of gasoline, which makes it hard to predict the cost basis for driving a gasoline-powered vehicle.
“Electricity fluctuates less, and you can buy it in advance, so I can give you a guaranteed price per mile, cheaper than the price of gas today,” Agassi told the Times.
Tenafly native Michael Granoff was the first investor in the Project Better Place initiative through his company Israel Cleantech Ventures, which provides “added growth capital to exceptional entrepreneurs building Israel’s energy, water and environmental technology leaders,” according to a February 1, 2008 report in the Jewish Standard.
He predicts by 2010 the partnership will have built 500,000 charge spots and a network of battery exchange stations in Israel. They are hoping to put a few thousand electric cars on the road by 2009, with a goal of 100,000 in operation at the end of 2010.
The venture has gained widespread support from the Israeli government, with both Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres seeing the electric car as part of their green vision for Israel.
At a recent press appearance covered by the Times, Peres suggested “Israel can’t become a major industrial country, but it can become a daring world laboratory and a pilot plant for new ideas, like the electric car.”
Ariela Lovett, 18, a member of Nu’s teen board, graduated from Livingston High School and now attends Mount Holyoke College.
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Tesla Motors, another electric car company, was also started by an Israeli.
That was me who commented before; guess I wasn’t logged in.