Better Place's $1 billion electric vehicle grid headed to Bay Area

Need another reason to live in America's other bastion of social liberalism and homelessness? How about a $1 billion electric vehicle re-charging infrastructure in the Bay Area? Palo Alto's Better Place is finally bringing its ambitious, city-wide electrical grid and battery exchange service home after staking plans to do the same in Israel, Denmark, and Australia. The plan just endorsed by the San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco Mayors (without coughing up any money), is expected to result in 250,000 charging ports (for topping off charges), 200 battery-swap stations (for trips over 100 miles), and a driver service center by 2012 -- network planing and permitting will begin in 2009 with infrastructure deployment set to kickoff in 2010. Here's how it works, customers will receive a discounted price on electric vehicles when they subscribe to drive a certain number of miles -- Better Place will own the batteries. Besides clearing the way of government bureaucracy, the mayors have agreed to offer incentives for companies that install the plug-in stations. Now get this, Better Place expects to lure electric vehicles from the usual suspects like Toyota, Renault-Nissan, and GM in addition to, get this, Tesla Motors. Oh yes. Almost makes us want to hug an Upper Haight, teenage, poser hippie. Almost.

Update: Coincidentally, Tesla is considering a small, swappable battery for its Model S sport sedan that, according to Elon Musk, could be changed "faster than you can fill a car with gasoline." Ah, synergy.

[Via San Jose Mercury News, Thanks KKH]

[bob sakamano @ Nov 21st 2008 9:13AM]

conformists

[Chronic Exonomx @ Nov 21st 2008 10:52PM]

Lol conformists. Better sarcasm than ricker tried.

Man, Thomas Ricker wouldnt even have a job if it wasnt for people from san francisco... AKA Ryan Block.

Sucks engadget is goin downhill for the past year or so. I used to read it everymorning now it seems like i go a couple days if not a week without even thinking about it.

O by the way if you want to see homelessness check out the homeless shanty towns outside of San Diego. You know because they made it illegal to be homeless to get rid of homlessness

[From My Cube @ Nov 21st 2008 9:13AM]

at first i thought this idea was supposed to replace gas stations...which would have been awsome...but I dont think its going to work like that.....please make those charging stations with a universal charging port so every auto maker can tap into it

[captainpease @ Nov 21st 2008 10:50AM]

It's disappointing that the major gas stations haven't stepped up to make similar announcements regarding electrical charge stations. They better learn from GM and Ford and stop sitting on their hands or else they won't survive either. Adapt or die.

[From My Cube @ Nov 21st 2008 10:53AM]

to be honest, i dont care if they die, while they are only the middleman we have been slaves to those stations for decades, its time we move on to charging our cars in our homes when possible

[cb88 @ Nov 21st 2008 9:17AM]

what is the point of a battery swap station if you get 300+ miles off a charge and it charges in an hour?

[captainpease @ Nov 21st 2008 10:44AM]

Have you ever known anyone to run out of gas? People are gonna have their reasons for not charging (in a hurry, lazy, forgetful, etc.) and these stations will service them.

[PyRo1509 @ Nov 21st 2008 12:01PM]

Some batteries use a different substrate so with a 400+volt outlet you can get a full charge in 10 min

[Josamo @ Nov 21st 2008 9:24AM]

So, has anyone thought about people who might just unplug these if they walked by? Or perhaps some who might decided to cut the cords to these cars? I'm not trying to focus on the worst in people but I was wondering if precautions had been put in place.

[josamo @ Nov 21st 2008 9:27AM]

Not the best english but you get the point. Sorry.

[emh @ May 15th 2009 10:14AM]

Yes, and what if someone goes and breaks your window? Or keys the doors? Has someone thought of that?

[grabbydad @ Nov 21st 2008 9:33AM]

I was thinking the same thing because I always see people cutting through gas hoses at stations.

[chrisp @ Nov 21st 2008 9:46AM]

People cut through GAS hoses? Where the heck do you live, cause I live in South Africa and that never hapends here. Sheesh.

[Austin @ Nov 21st 2008 9:42AM]

It is sad but people would do that on this Earth. I don't think there is really a way to prevent it unless the coord is inside a steel box that goes into a charge port on your car or something like that. Its hard to explain over the internet lol.

[Tennisking112 @ Nov 21st 2008 9:45AM]

There are going to be douche bags that want to destroy peoples property like that, but they can just as easily key the car that is plugged in and ruin the paint job.

[Technex @ Nov 21st 2008 11:29AM]

Charging batteries takes longer than refilling a tank...

[daveofferson @ Nov 21st 2008 11:59AM]

@chrisp:
Do they have sarcasm-refilling stations in South Africa?

[kjb434 @ Nov 21st 2008 9:45AM]

And California has not issues in generating electricity for daily use right now....

I wonder how well charging will go during hot summers when the rolling brownouts occur or worse blackouts.

If these people were intelligent enough to realize manmade global warming is a hoax, they would build some more Electric Plants to actually sustain themselves.

[phanbouy fan fan @ Nov 21st 2008 12:27PM]

So what you're saying is that Republicans hate science. Thanks for the obviousness update, Capt Obvious.

[nanobis @ Nov 21st 2008 9:59AM]

I think this i good idea. Lets just hope that more Countries and states follow on suit.

[philipp.eigenmann @ Nov 21st 2008 10:37AM]

Haven't found anything official about GM or Tesla... Just in the San Jose Mercury News...

On betterplace.com it only mentions Renault/Nissan for now and they said they were in talks with Daimler at some point.

Would be great news though if Tesla, GM etc. support Better Place.

[Valicore @ Nov 21st 2008 10:44AM]

Damn, Thomas Ricker sure hates San Francisco, must be repressed or something. Should they actually start doing this, I would be concerned that, at the rate green tech is changing, the system might be outdated or incompatible by the time it's finished.

[ajfarson @ Nov 21st 2008 10:46AM]

Wow... liberals want their utopia, and since they cannot manage to fix the bad stuff they figure they can just ignore it... Too bad the SF mayor wouldn't sign some bills, and cough up some money for something really important in that cesspool of a city... like perhaps helping those homeless people reenter into society, or getting more cops on the street. I guess he is too busy screaming "civil rights for gay marriage" and claiming we have the right abort unwanted babies... Oh, and of course pleading with us to save the trees... because those things are more important right?

[Larry @ Nov 21st 2008 10:59AM]

Must-read article on Better Place and their founder, Shai Agassi in Wired: http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi


This could actually work if we could get the infrastructure in place.

[Unique Gift Ideas @ Nov 21st 2008 11:31AM]

I would assume that these charging grids would have to be placed in residential areas, in large car-park-like areas. Although a positive step in the right direction, the fruition of this development won't come through until auto manufactures decrease the amount of time it takes for a person to charge their car. I think that parking garages specifically designed for electric cars would be the most effective way of creating a solution to this problem.

[Labrador @ Nov 21st 2008 11:55AM]

I don't know about this... I can just see myself coming back from work/shopping, only to find out some prankster has pulled my plug and I have to wait another 4 hours or so before I can drive home.

[PyRo1509 @ Nov 21st 2008 12:01PM]

We don't own the battery?

:APPROVE:

[KKH @ Nov 21st 2008 12:06PM]

Philipp

How about that? Coincidence? Hardly

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/21/tesla-model-s-sedan-could-have-swappable-battery-pack/

[Bob @ Nov 21st 2008 12:05PM]

Dr. Manhattan is gonna be pissed when he finds out his patent was stolen.

[BigD145 @ Nov 21st 2008 12:32PM]

Take that same money and invest in the high speed rail and more inner city public transportation.

[Scott @ Nov 21st 2008 1:25PM]

What the heck is wrong with you? This is exactly what should be happening. Santa Monica currently has a 100% solar powered garage (venting & lighting before you ask) that also has charge-up stations for electric vehicles. And get this, b/c the charging is produced by solar power, it's offered for free. So drivers that buy electric can go completely off the grid rather than just moving the pollution from the tailpipe to the power plant.

Sure, tax money probably paid for the garage. But the money had to come from somewhere and addressing climate change isn't going to be free.

@BidD145: public transportation is and always will be underutilized. The people that don't take the trains make that choice b/c the trains are typically inconvenient, dirty and malodorous. Giving those people a real incentive to quit belching CO2 is a wonderful idea.

Little side note: Our public train system (the BART) is always inconvenient, dirty and malodorous. But the other reason to not take the BART is lack of parking, not lack of capacity. The suburban stations' lots fill up by 7ish. The urban stations don't even have parking. Oh, and you're not allowed to enter or leave an urban station with a bike during the commute hours. Okay, can't drive to the train. Can't ride my bike to the train. You know what? I didn't really want to sit on that pee stained seat today next to the hobo anyway. Guess I'll drive.

[Valicore @ Nov 21st 2008 1:50PM]

I like BART, I've found it to be a lot cleaner and more comfortable than a lot of other metro systems. You're right in that the parking is a huge problem, and so is the fact that it goes so few places. I do, however, completely agree with what you said about the cost of something like this vs. the cost of dealing with global warming. A large part of the USA and countries all around the world are already dealing with climate change that is costing trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. This is an extremely cheap alternative in the long run.

[phanbouy fan fan @ Nov 21st 2008 4:10PM]

Scott, the problems you're describing about BART are greatly exaggerated.

[Johan S @ Nov 21st 2008 2:29PM]

See I knew they would do the battery swapping thing:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/18/tesla-scales-back-range-targets/


I had made that comment back in April 2007 but for some reason it comes up with todays date because I found the comment by looking thru my email and clicked the activate link just now.. why does engadget do that?

[Johan S @ Nov 21st 2008 2:32PM]

Here it is on google cache:

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:mgnHRixAKXkJ:www.engadget.com/2007/04/18/tesla-scales-back-range-targets/+johan+s+%22stations+to+interchange+batteries+%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[Salsa Shark @ Nov 23rd 2008 7:28AM]

Please stop by the Engadget offices to pick up your prize.

[CoolGuy @ Nov 21st 2008 6:17PM]

You guys should check out the Wired Magazine article that they did about the guy that started this and is the founder and idea behind this. Very interesting article. Has a lot of stuff how it all works etc.

http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi

[jake @ Nov 21st 2008 6:35PM]

Tesla is considering battery swapping but I don't think they ever said it had anything to do with Project Better Place or that they have any dealings with them.

Battery swapping is an interesting idea but it does really require a subscription model and a lot of infrastructure support. It could work if there's a lot of cooperation between the government and the company. The benefit of course is elimination of the wait time for charging and also the customer doesn't have to foot the whole bill of the battery all at once.

I'm thinking even without battery swapping, a system of street chargers and then rapid chargers distributed in key gas stations will be enough to allow widespread EV usage without the range anxiety. Some of the slower rapid chargers will give you 60-80 miles on a 15 minute charge while the faster ones can give you 80-120 miles on a 10-20 minute charge. I think that is more than reasonable for people who want to travel longer distances. Of course not all battery systems support this kind of charging and there is the issue of power delivery to the station.

[Al Bundy @ Nov 21st 2008 11:12PM]

so will this now cost 10 or 20 times the cost of gas?

[bayarea @ Nov 23rd 2008 2:29AM]

@BigD145: Its going to cost A LOT more money than that, and i think the prop to connect the metro systems in CA(prop1a) with a high speed train passed, so its kinda irrelevant since its already going to happen. and i dont think the current inner city pubic transportation needs to be improved all that much, i thinks it perfectly fine, at least where i live.

oh and kjb434, you suck. so do you ajfarson. thats why you're low ranked

[bayarea @ Nov 23rd 2008 2:30AM]

hahaha i said pubic, i meant public, my bad lol

[BerBar @ Dec 2nd 2008 12:05AM]

Finally, Renault in the U.S. :-D