VIDEO: San Francisco mayor in talks with Project Better Place
We've told you all about Shai Agassi's (above left) ambitious Project Better Place and how PBP has plans to create a charging and battery-swapping infrastructure to support fleets of electric cars in Israel, Denmark and possibly Japan. We've also noted not only PBP's deals with Renault to be the first major auto supplier for the scheme but Renault's repeated announcements of its intention to bring electric cars to America in couple of years from now. Now all of this seems to be coming together and it appears, much to our jaw-dropping surprise, that a city in California may very well lead the way into this brand new age of electric-car driving.
According to the San Francisco Sentinel, the mayor of that fair city, Gavin Newsom (above on right), is in talks with PBP about setting up shop in his town of steep rolling hills. In Israel last week to encourage exchanges between business peoples of that country with those in the San Francisco area, the mayor met with several different executives from Agassi's company. Over lunch with CEO Moshe Kaplinsky, Newsom offered to work with the company if they would consider using his city as a testing ground. Watch the video from a Israeli news interview after the break to hear the mayor discuss the goings-on in his own words.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris 4:04PM (5/14/2008)
Don't think PBP is a good thing!
EV's should be about low running costs. They require little maintenance and recharging your batteries should be cheap. PBP's goal is to stop this dream from coming true. It want's you to engage in an expensive monthly payment scheme. You don't get to own your batteries but you have to rent current technology batteries which provide limited range so you will be dependend on the recharging grid PBP supplies too. For this service they will make you pay dearly too. As long as EEstor style miracle storage devices are not available it's wiser to buy Chevy Volt style PHEV's that have no need for an expensive recharging grid involving a cumbersome battery swapping scheme.
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Wave54 5:46PM (5/14/2008)
* 1. Don't think PBP is a good thing! *
I disagree, unless the PBP infrastructure is proprietary and will only work with cars under their plan. Without government or a company fronting the money for the necessary charging network, EVs will only be useful to a select group, largely in rural and suburban housing.
PBP is planning to install 500,000 charging points and a smaller number of battery transfer stations in Israel. Who will convert parking meters to EV charging points and install outdoor plugs in parking garages/lots and condo/apartment complexes without a PBP-like scheme?
If they get the ball rolling, it can only be a positive for the concept as a whole.
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bluegreen 6:21PM (5/14/2008)
>> EV's should be about low running costs.
Says who? For me, an EV is about sustainability as a secondary option to taking public transit. Anyways, who does financial analysis based solely on operating costs? You need to calculate the total cost of ownership that captures ALL the costs. For example, if you're taking out a $50,000 loan at 8% just so you can own your batteries, what's the cost of interest, depreciation and replacement? No one even knows the actual operating costs under PBP's business model so wouldn't it be somewhat difficult to analyze at this point?
No need to spout off inflammatory rhetoric.
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Lad 12:40AM (5/15/2008)
As I understand the PBP model, it is similar to the cell phone model. The longer your commitment to subscribe to the battery service, the less your new Renault electric car will cost...to the point that if you sign up for a long enough period of time, the car is almost free.
The way you should think about this proposal is it cost you so much per month to drive your car and you don't need to dink around with the fuel supply (in this case the batteries) other than plugging them in and changing them out when they age. What they are selling here is rental batteries and a charging service and they have to maintain them.
I think this model will fit many of the people in San Francisco who don't want to be concerned with the hands-on aspect of electric cars. There are those of us who might not like the model because we are more of the DIY, hands-on kind of driver. Well for us, perhaps there's a retrofit coming down the road a little later. I would like nothing better than to retrofit my little 240Z with an electric drive line and blow the nanny-filled Evos into the weeds (ha).
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