Comments on: Shai Agassi: Note to Next President, Better Place for U.S. Would Cost $100B

By: Better Place Fuels Up With $350M, Focuses on 2011

Better Place Fuels Up With $350M, Focuses on 2011 — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:31:59 +0000

[...] Better Place says it will be using the funds to continue deployments in countries where it is currently working — Israel, Denmark, Australia, and Hawaii — and also to expand into markets “in Europe and Asia.” Founder and CEO Shai Agassi (one of our Earth2Tech Top 15 Connected Car Influencers) said on a media call this morning that the company is planning to deploy between 15,000 and 20,000 charging stations for both Israel and Denmark (previously he’s also said hundreds of thousands of charging stations would be required per cou...). [...]

By: PHOTOS/VIDEO: Better Place’s Danish Strategy

PHOTOS/VIDEO: Better Place’s Danish Strategy — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:17:12 +0000

[...] cost more than that — Better Place has said to get Israel’s EV network up and running it’ll cost $200 million. Israel is about half the square kilometers of [...]

By: View posts, videos & articles about Project Better Place and meet Mike Granoff in Atlanta, March 20th « American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, SE

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:19:24 +0000

[...] 6. Shai Agassi: Note to Next President, Better Place for U.S. Would Cost $100B [...]

By: Obama Eyeing Better Place? « Earth2Tech

Obama Eyeing Better Place? « Earth2Tech — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:01:05 +0000

[...] an entirely unproven business model around electric vehicles is going to be rather difficult. Agassi has said — in a speech with a direct shoutout for the incoming administration — that a network [...]

By: Hawaii Says Aloha to Better Place « Earth2Tech

Hawaii Says Aloha to Better Place « Earth2Tech — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:34:04 +0000

[...] tells us it will be similar to the planned investment in Israel and Denmark; Israel is supposed to cost around $200 million to buildout. Hawaii utility Hawaiian Electric Company has also signed on, in what it says is the first Better [...]

By: Better Place to Build First U.S. Electric Vehicle Network in Bay Area « Earth2Tech

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:45:49 +0000

[...] market availability of electric cars” will be ready by 2012. That figure makes Agassi’s previous $1.5 billion estimate for a network for all of California sound rather low. Better Place says network planning [...]

By: Thursday Tech Round-up (Stories worth a damn) : tinyComb

Thursday Tech Round-up (Stories worth a damn) : tinyComb — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:21:03 +0000

[...] vehicle infrastructure company, BetterPlace, making a big announcemment today about adding California to its list of [...]

By: Better Place Announcement Thursday in San Francisco « Earth2Tech

Better Place Announcement Thursday in San Francisco « Earth2Tech — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:33:28 +0000

[...] Agassi has said that to build out the infrastructure throughout California it would cost $1.5 billion, or about two weeks of oil imports. That would include car-charging spots in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and battery swap stations every 25 miles that would connect these hubs. For 100 miles, the system would need four switch stations, which would cost $2 million; for 400 miles, the network would need 16 stations, which would cost $8 million. [...]

By: Chris Emery

Chris Emery — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:38:58 +0000

Surely gas-hybrids only make Charging points redundant if running on gasoline (or diesel, ethanol, anhydrous ammonia or any other internal-combustion fuel) is cheaper than running electrically?

I see no possibility that this will ever be the case. it would be worth plugging a plug-in gas-electro hybrid into a PBP charging point unless their electricity surcharges are ludicrous, as the cost of a kilowatt/hour of electricity is a tiny fraction of the cost of an equivalent energy-density of any internal-combustion fuel you can name...

By: DH

DH — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:22:20 +0000

Better Place’s (”BP”) idea is the most foolish business plan ever. It is premised on the assumption that battery technology will not evolve and improve. Battery technology is technology. With time, technology gets better and costs less. Look at processors, LCD TVs, etc. Investment into battery technology has been growing exponentially since the advent of laptops, cellphones, PDAs. Batteries can already get us 100 miles. How much improvement do we need before BP’s “recharging/swapping stations” become redundant? BP plans to have it’s infrastructure set up in Australia by 2012. As per normal delays, that means it will actually be set up by 2014-16. There are no plans for the USA. So, at the earliest, infrastructure would be set up here by 2018. That is a decade away. Where do you think battery technology will be in a decade? It in all likelihood, it will be in a place that makes BP’s charging stations redundant before they even get truly started. This is not to mention that plug-in electric-gas hybrids would make all that BP infrastructure redundant. All BP is trying to do is get into the market early to create a electricity network monopoly. When consumers realize that their batteries are good enough so that the network is redundant, BP’s monopoly will disintegrate.