The five passenger Renault Megane will serve as the prototype vehicle for Project Better Place, whose name originates from a challenge posed at the Davos Economic Forum in 2004. Equipped with iron-doped lithium-ion phosphate batteries, the car will have a range of 100 miles. The battery will be swappable in just a few minutes time. The company's business model resembles that of cellular telephone service.
A dialog with Michael Granoff on the groundbreaking government, industry, private investor electric car venture in Israel.
Premium Feature Article Originally Published: January 23, 2008
Long-time EV World reader Mike Granoff hadn't slept much in the last four days, he told me late last night. He had just flown back on a non-stop, polar flight from Tel Aviv, Israel to Los Angeles, connecting to a flight that would reunite him with his young family vacationing in Utah. From the ski slopes of the Wasatch Mountains, Mike unwound and told me the back story of Project Better Place.
Only the day before, as one of the key partners in Project Better Place, he had been present for the official announcement that Renault-Nissan Alliance would begin building electric versions of the popular Renault Megane sedan. This was companied by an announcement that the Israeli government had passed very favorable tax legislation that will encourage the deployment of electric vehicles.
The road to that momentous alliance between the State of Israel, one of the world's largest carmakers and US and Israeli investors on January 21, 2007 in Israel began several years earlier at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Israeli-born Shai Agassi was on track to become the next CEO of enterprise software powerhouse SAP. A naturalized U.S. citizen with dual-citizenship, Agassi was a member of the "Young Global Economic Leaders"group that is part of the World Economic Forum. During the 2004 meeting in Davos, the economic and political leaders were challenged to "make the world a better place" by 2020.
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From the pictures of the cars seen elsewhere, they seem to use AC Propulsion's AC-150 drivetrain... could you conform that?
It would be interesting to know if that's just for prototyping, or if ACP finally has a big fish on the hook, much bigger than Tesla anyway.
Posted by: Mirko Reinhardt
29-Jan-2008
60163
There is also another electric vehicle fleet that is in State of Israel’s vital political interest to develop. It is a well proven technology but I do not know if it can done on a private investment basis. It is the Israeli Railroad System. It should be expanded, completely electrified, and double tracked. Urban development should then be planned along its commuter electric rail lines.
On another note, there is another Israeli company (Arotech Corp. (US market ARTX) that has a battery technology (Zinc-air) that is appropriate for Israel’s taxi, commuter buses and delivery van fleets. Zinc air battery packs can be taken out of the taxi’s, buses and vans, new packs put in and then the old packs recharged. Not only will it work in Israel, it will also work on the rest of the planet. It was already tested in Germany by the German Postal Service. Zinc-air can also be used for private automobiles but the batteries are much more suited for fleets. In the effort of full disclosure, I own shares in ARTX but its Zinc-air batteries have not been commercially successful as yet.
Posted by: Michael Stavy
25-Jan-2008
60129
There is a large misconception about battery driven electric cars. It still takes a lot of energy to push a conventionally shaped car down the road. In the United States, for every kwhr of electrical energy produced from fossil fuel, two to three times that much energy is dumped. Arguments rage on, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that for every zap of electric energy from the plug, there is a corresponding shovel of coal into a furnace, and the economics indicate that this will be the case for many years to come.
If one believes there is a need for charging stations, then one must also believe that the anticipated electric cars are not all that efficient. If high efficiency cars were adapted instead, then existing household equipment could be adapted to do the charging job. Batteries could also be much smaller and lighter. Far more progress can be made toward a better world by accepting a really innovative car like shown at http://www.miastrada.com.
Jim Bullis (I have an interest in Miastrada Corp.)
Posted by: James Bullis
26-Jan-2008
60137
Correction to my previous post: It should read: --- for every kwhr of electric energy produced from fossil fuel, one to two time that much energy is dumped.
If you use the data from 2005, the average efficiency over that year was 34.4%, so the actual amount of heat energy dumped in the process of electricity production was twice the amount of electric energy produced.
Posted by: James Bullis
27-Jan-2008
60147
So what do school children think of Project Better Place? (Posted on Agassi's blog, 'The Long Tailpipe').
