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Project Better Place

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Gordon Brown needs all the help he can get in the polls at the moment. Perhaps saying "you can all have a free car" is exactly what he needs :smile:.

To be fair, it's about time the government offered the public a few more carrots, rather than seemingly endless sticks, on sustainable transport.
 
dp,

this is great news! That a country with the population of the UK (and the attendant potential EV sales) is making a serious move towards embracing EVs for personal transportation, is a fantastic sign for the rapid, and widespread, adoption of EVs in the rest of the developed world. The high cost of petrol, and the relatively high population density, should make this a successful program in the UK.

I just wish this were also happening in Canada. Unfortunately, our present national government is quite resistant to the adoption of EVs, due to the PM being from Calgary, which is the epicentre of the Canadian oil industry. Oil money helped get him where he is right now, and EV's are a threat to big oil, so guess what....?

Anyway, long live the rEVolution! :smile:

All the best,

Chris H.
 
I wonder if Tesla and "Better Place" can coordinate. It would be a shame if "Better Place" put in a lot of charger infrastructure that was incompatible with Tesla charging.
 
You mean future Model S quick charging?
Current Roadsters should not have any problems utilizing any 240V/80A source.

I don't know if Better Place will offer a proprietary plug interface or something "open standard". If proprietary, perhaps a "better place to Tesla" adapter could be produced.

Old RAV4EV and RangerEVs have their own plug standards that are different from what Tesla uses.
 
I just said that (!)

Hadn't seen your other post yet. We are thinking the same thing. This point has been made before. It just becomes all the more significant since Better Place appears to be headed to the UK as well as Tesla. It wasn't such a big deal when Tesla was US only, and Better Place seemed to be Israel only, but now they will be in the same market.
 
Electric cars could be given away free - Mirror.co.uk

This more than demonstrates the quality of journalism in a typical British tabloid...

Mr Brown will meet manufacturers this week to try to persuade them to mass-produce electric cars.

He will then outline his plans to accelerate the use of electric cars at the Motor Show this week.

It was also revealed yesterday that inventor James Dyson is working on a fast battery-powered car with a solar panels. At the moment, electric cars can only go around 30mph.
 
Labour: Gordon Brown kick-starts green car plan

Proposals include:

• Removing barriers in the planning system to enable an electric charging network to be set up as quickly as possible.

• Collaborating with other countries - including Germany, France, Denmark, and Portugal - on international industry standards.

• Launching a study on issues relating to the development and commercialisation of electric cars, with findings to be included in a low-carbon manufacturing strategy in the autumn.

• Working with the National Grid and energy companies to assess the impact on the electricity system of the widespread use of electric vehicles and ensure adequate capacity.

• Providing more than £90m of funding for UK research, development and demonstration of low carbon vehicles over the next five years, and an additional £20m to provide lead markets for low carbon vehicles through the use of strategic public procurement.

• Accelerating the pace of transition to low emissions vehicles, so that within the next three years new car purchases for all Government departments average 130g/km CO2 or less.

BBC NEWS | UK | Brown drives green car revolution

Mr Brown outlined measures aimed at assisting the changeover to low carbon and electric vehicles.

He said the government was working towards a situation where electric-powered cars could be charged in thousands of streets, and it would spend £90m over the next five years to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles.

Nothing specific about Project Better Place, though.
 
I will be shocked if cars are on the road by the end of 2008. If it happens, smaller countries, in particular island countries like Britain, Japan, etc. may buy in to Shai's idea. I hope it works.
 
I don't think 2008 is quite accurate. Prototypes are likely to arrive in 2009. Limited production to start in 2010 and then mass production will happen in 2011. The car shown in the video is just a conversion. Shai Agassi has mentioned that he hopes to have 50 conversions ready this year to use in Israel for giving test drives and getting people educated and used to what an electric car feels like to drive.
 
Last Winter when Tesla was still testing out the idea of the WhiteStar having a range extender, they also made some comment about it possibly having swappable batteries. I took this to mean they were considering partnering with Project Better Place. Has anyone heard anything new now that the WhiteStar is the Model S? PBP doesn't make sense for the Roadster, but it might make sense for the Model S.
 
After reading the Wired article, I had some more thoughts about Better Place.

Better Place has an entirely different business model from Tesla. Better Place wants to make money selling the power you use to recharge the EVs. They want someone else to make the EVs, and they want to sell them at a subsidized discount and then make money in the long run as they maintain and refill your battery pack. Better Place seems to be "inventing" a smart charging infrastructure that will direct you to the appropriate charger at the appropriate times. In some cases this will take into account grid capacity and request that you charge when there is extra power available. I bet they get into V2G someday too asking to attach your car to take power back when the grid needs some extra juice at that time.

If Better Place subsidizes the cars and the battery pack, then they need to charge above market rates for power. Would Tesla owners (who paid full price for their cars) want to pay inflated rates for power at Better Place power stations? I doubt it. Also, better place chargers will probably have proprietary protocols and perhaps even "security features" to make them only work with Better Place cars. To me, a risk item for Better Place would be if someone found a way to recharge their Better Place car using a non-better place charger. You could defeat their business model if you used power that doesn't include their needed mark-up. I bet they will engineer in all sorts of safety mechanisms to prevent this, but we know how resourceful some people can be at bypassing even well engineered systems.

I don't see Better Place cars using Tesla chargers, or Tesla cars using Better Place chargers. Perhaps the only possibility would be if Tesla made a special "Model S Better Place edition" that included the Better Place charging components. Then it would only charge at Better Place chargers and nowhere else.

...Just some thoughts...