Shai Agassi, the founder of Better Place, said in a speech Monday that his company's battery-swapping service will launch at a price cheaper than gasoline in most places, costing the equivalent of $2 - $2.50 a gallon and falling to a $1-a-gallon equivalent by the end of the decade.
The swapping service will allow electric vehicle drivers to pull up to a Better Place station and have their drained battery exchanged for a fully-charged one in just under a minute. Its official launch is in 79 days in Israel, where gas is close to $7 a gallon. The full pricing plans will be announced just before the launch.
For the past 75 days, electric taxi drivers in Tokyo have been testing a pilot swapping station. The battery swaps have averaged 59.1 seconds and each taxi has averaged 10,000 miles, marks of success according to Better Place.
If the Better Place concept (where people buy electric cars and a battery service separately, resulting in far cheaper EVs) works in Israel and Europe, and if cheaper EVs and cheap fuel come together, electric cars could take over more quickly than thought.
via Greentech Media
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written by Stew, July 14, 2010
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Hopefully it'll come to puerto rico soon...
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JUL 14
"Sounds awesome! ;D Hopefully it'll come to puerto rico soon......"
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