ProjectBetterPlace
Latest
Renault / Project Better Place shows off new electric sedan prototype
We'd heard Renault was prepping a new electric car in conjunction with EV start-up Project Better Place, but no one had actually seen the thing until its unveiling today in Tel Aviv. The car itself only has a 125 mile range, which is where Project Better Place's network of charging and battery swap stations come in. But since those aren't intended for rollout until 2010 in Israel and Denmark, Renault won't have any EVs immediately available to buyers -- making this consumer-friendly sedan more of a precursor to the supposed $0.5-1 billion the Renault-Nissan alliance are lining up to invest in their respective electric vehicle businesses.[Via AutoblogGreen]
Nissan, Renault and Better Place team for electric cars, charging points in Israel
While there are many rational and irrational reasons for the delays we've seen in production of a mass-market and massively adopted electric car, most of the major issues seem to be addressed by this new initiative going down in Israel. One of the primary problems with electric cars is refilling, and that's going to be nicely addressed by entrepreneur Shai Agassi's Project Better Place, which will build a charging network of 500,000 plug-in points across the country. Other issues were a bit more easily addressed: since Israel is a small country, the limited range of electric cars isn't as much of an issue, and the government subsidies should make prices competitive -- with the eventual cost of ownership significantly less than gas cars to sweeten the deal even further. Nissan and Renault plan to built the cars, naturally, and hope to port the concepts into other vehicles in other countries in the near future. The plan is to launch the first cars in Israel around 2011.
