The Genius That May Make Electric Cars Practical Gets Plenty More $$$$

Anyone who is critical of electric vehicles all shares one argument in mind; they are not practical. That is because most EVs can only last approximately 100 miles or so per charge, then it can take several hours to "refill."

Problem solved. A firm calling themselves Better Place have come up with a viable solution and they are rallying the big guns to get behind them. The crazy thing is, it is working.

The firm has just received another $350 million in funding to continue their operations.

The genius idea? Rather than simply have recharging stations, the key is to do battery swapping at station sites. Supposedly this could all take less than the amount of time required to refill a tank of gas. Users will be charged a fee depending on how far they drive.

Does this sounding promising to you? Let us know in the comments below and make your voice heard on AutoSpies...

The New York Times reports:

"Better Place, the closely watched start-up that hopes to create vast networks of charge spots to power electric cars, is set to receive a vote of confidence on Monday, in the form of $350 million in new venture capital.

Although Better Place will most likely require billions more in financing, this investment is an important step for the company and its chief, Shai Agassi, an Israeli-American software executive who founded the company in 2007.

“Better Place is a huge experiment in how you sell and fuel vehicles, and these investors are becoming convinced this will make money,” said Rod Lache, an analyst at Deutsche Bank..."


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AlleVier - 1/26/2010 6:23:20 PM

0 Boost

I thought of that idea some time ago (as well as many others, I'm sure). I am no genius. One of the potential issues that has to be resolved is that of assuring that the consumer gets what he's paying for as far amount of electrical charge, though this isn't much different from worrying about whether the gas you buy has a certain octane rating, for example. Also, to make this work best, some battery connection standards have to be developed. The good thing is that you would only pay for the amount of charge you get and wouldn't have to worry about the battery's obsolescence as new tech appears.

Neverfollow - 1/26/2010 8:24:34 PM

+2 Boost

So let me get this straight. You pull up and a fork lift removes over 1000lbs of batteries and replaces them while you wait?

Agent00R - 1/26/2010 10:11:26 PM

0 Boost

Yeah'p I am not so sure how they are going to standardize this process.

Especially when every EV places batteries in different spots.

AlleVier - 1/27/2010 12:14:53 AM

0 Boost

Ever been to an oil-change franchise? Someone realized that it takes a lot of time and more skill to put a car on a hydraulic lift then to drive over a hole in the ground. The same ingenuity would be brought to bear on this problem. If you set out to make a car whose battery is easy to remove, it will readily be accomplished.

Neverfollow - 1/26/2010 8:26:51 PM

+1 Boost

Where are these places going to store that many battery sets?

AlleVier - 1/26/2010 11:48:27 PM

-1 Boost

First of all, this doesn't happen until some parts of the battery systems are standardized--things such as general location, connection types, removal method, etc. Second, in this system, you don't own the battery, you just buy the juice. Yeah, you get a battery with the car, but just in the same way that you get a full tank of gas in new car.

If the battery becomes just a vessel for the electrical charge, by and large you don't care whether it's new or not--only that you get the amount of power you paid for. Understandably, you don't want a battery that is significantly at the end of its life span, because then you are carrying dead weight but, then again, no one said it would have to be a single, giant battery either.

Joe_Limon - 1/26/2010 8:50:01 PM

+1 Boost

I've heard of doing this idea with a superconducting coil which are theoretically immensely energy dense forms of storing electricity...

t_bone - 1/26/2010 9:28:32 PM

+2 Boost

I like the idea, except that by the time it is ready and a lot of people using it, 10 years or so, battery technology will probably give you 800 miles on an overnight charge...

AlleVier - 1/26/2010 11:33:16 PM

+1 Boost

T_bone, this is the classic catch-22 situation, though. People won't buy EVs in large numbers until the technology provides 800-mile range, but companies won't develop the technology until large numbers of people are buying EVs.

Joe_Limon - 1/27/2010 10:05:39 AM

+2 Boost

Pretty sure that you would have to bring in a couple thousand dollar battery before you could walk off with another...

hybridfarce - 1/27/2010 8:42:03 AM

+1 Boost

The company Better Place is already developing and deploying such a system using an automated battery swapping device, whose operation takes less than 2 minutes. The first system will be deployed next year in some Israeli and Denmark cities. It appears that this system is targeting local travel (intra-city, such as taxis and local commuters). There are issues with deploying it in the US, namely EV car manufacturers would have to standardize on a common battery enclosure/connection scheme, and deployment needs to be far wider than just major cities (or EV “range anxiety” may hold back adoption). Can you see GM, Tesla, Nissan, or the Germans agreeing on a common battery scheme?

thstone - 1/27/2010 5:43:40 PM

+1 Boost

This is a fail of epic proportions.

Why? Without an internationally recognized and agreed upon design standard between battery makers and automakers, this idea is DOA.