Electric car company Better Place is planning to file for bankruptcy within the next several days, Fortune has learned.
[…]
Better Place originally launched in late 2007 to build out a network of battery-swapping stations for electric cars (basically a twist on charging stations). Its premise was that the electric car market would eventually take off thanks to rising oil prices and the decline of traditional automakers. And, when that happened, Better Place already would be built out and ready to serve.
But when oil hit $125 per barrel and General Motors (GM) filed for bankruptcy within just 18 months into Better Place’s existence, it failed to successfully execute.
I toured the Better Place demonstration site in Israel when we were there in 2010, saw a nice video and rode in a electric car around a closed circuit. Their plan included recharging their swap-out car batteries with solar panels.
The guide didn’t like my questions very much.
h/t Ed S
The plan was to eat up as much tax dollars as they can while sleeping in until noon every day.. It was a complete success.. Now its time to pack it in and start again under a new name..
Think of it as recycling their ability to not get a real job.. very green.
The not-ready-for-consumer-markets-without-massive-public-subsidy so-called “green auto tech” continues to crater. In a way I’m saddened because a practical electric personal transport vehicle is a must for urban travel (even though the current e-car engineering lacks the Henry Ford vision of cheap, reliable, affordable, low maintenance).
What does delight me is that consumer demand is still the diviner of survival in the upper end manufacturing markets – the kleptocrats may legislate a command economy and markets but the people still keep demand economics alive in their consumer patterns – perhaps the failure of the kleptocrat’s darling agenda 21 project (the e-car) will make them take the next step – which is to remove choice from the demand market for autos (as they did with green energy and fossil fuel/carbon taxing (you pay for it whether it’s practical or not) – coming to a show room near you: Adolph’s auto sales – one car, one price, no choice, buy it or take an ox cart to work.
Given the rate at which they are taxing traditional personal transport out of the reach of the middle class, I hope the e-car evolves before we can no longer afford to drive a gas-powered vehicle – or they legislate them out of existence.
No doubt.. We just want to get from here to there without joining a political party..
Gas or electric makes no difference as long as it works and its affordable..
But none of that matters in this situation because the green car (?) is a political hallmark far more than it is a practical means of transportation..
Why do we have to become one of them to simply get from here to there?
There was a time when the purchase of a vehicle didnt involve politics..
Its as if they are legislating their own political well being in a so called democracy..
BTW.. Nice sunny May 25th day with global warming causing frost bite on my ears because I had to mow the lawn.. Thank god our tax dollars are supporting rich leftists and their feel good political toys..
In 3 and a half weeks our days will be getting shorter with WINTER approaching..
im sure it nothing 🙂
Call me surprised that the Israelis with their innovations and inventions, could not get it going.
With the Arabs ability to choke off Israels supply of oil at anytime,
I thought electric cars and battery change stations might be in their future.
Surprise!
I think Better Place was mentioned in the Start-Up Nation book (a good read too, y’all should try it). The other logic they had to it I think was that Israelis are restricted to a pretty small land area to drive anywhere with a car (don’t think they can enter Jordan or Egypt), so there wasn’t that much of an area that needed to be covered either with recharging stations.
Better Place is now in a better place.
Even assuming we solve the battery storage limitations issue, we still need to build the infrastructure for charging – which the proponents of EVs seem to think someone else will pay for. Likewise, the consumption of electricity in a fleet of EVs will require additional generating capacity, which will not be met with so-called renewables until we can solve the – you guessed it – storage problems.
Of course, if we can develop a new technology that can produce electricity onboard – Ballard-type tech – then these issues go away. All our other energy problems also go away if we perfect cool fusion, or find a supply of unicorn farts, too. Predicating our energy salvation on undiscovered technology is a bit like throwing ourselves, lemming-like, off a cliff in the faith that we will learn to fly before the sudden stoppage.
Come on,pipples.We have coal using cars all ready.They are called golf carts!! And who paid for Better Place?? The Cypriots??
This is one of the reasons that I’m fully on board with the “Kate for Senate” campaign. I suspect that scoundrels would *not* like your questions very much.
What is needed is an annual 500 mile oval race with a million dollar prize. They can start with a full charge but can only recharge with a 1500 watt household type plug. They might take 2 weeks the first year. Nothing drives technology like a race or a war. Fat ass scientists in a fat ass lab have never done much innovation.
133 charging stations on N.American continent.. Do you suppose there would be much of a wait to recharge if in fact charge time is 1/2 hour?.. Suppose you are fourth in line or worse.You would have to be very committed to the environment or just crazy to continue driving one of these vehicles.
Their excuse seems to consist of an inability to
run their installation “business” at top speed
during a short time period when the maximum number
of the gullible were on board.
I am not a fan of electric cars or the environmental damage that electric cars will cause. I am perfectly happy to use my gas guzzling truck and would never consider buying an electric or even a hybrid but I really don’t see much reason to criticize Better Place. They perceived a future need and sought to fill it in a innovative and expedient manner. The need never materialized and thus the company failed. Nevertheless their idea certainly beat out the idea of the hours long recharge. Properly designed the batteries should change out in less time than it takes to fill a gas tank and if the electric car buyer could buy the car and then simply pay for the use of the battery he rents from the battery change out place electric cars might be a bit more feasible. Still wouldn’t buy one myself mind you.
And just where are you going to store,refit,and dispose of these change out batteries? Hopefully in the back yard of a greenie,under their bird chopper.
So they failed to f#%k em when they had them bent over..?..
My understanding is that they would recharge them for the next customer coming in. But that presupposes that all cars would be universal for battery change out. That would not happen for a long period of manufacture I wouldn’t think.
We are all going green to prevent global warming from causing children to never experience snow.
We love Gaia and must pay our tithes and alms at the altar of Greenie ideas.
Thank you Al Gore and David. Suzuki. You guys are cool.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SkiWhiteface/status/338745777910325249
I discussed battery leasing and exchange stations a long time ago, and that would be the only way for E-cars with todays battery technology. But there is another problem for the Israelis, they discovered a sh1tload of natural gas in the meditranean sea, and are looking to become a gas exporter. I’s heard you can run a car on natural gas:-))))))
Kate said: “The guide didn’t like my questions very much.”
You asked him how many acres of solar cells it took to recharge one single car battery in a day, didn’t you? They hate it when you ask ’em that.
Or she asked him where all those rare earth elements come from to make those acres of solar cells.Heh.
Yep. Or how many truckloads of coal get burnt at the local electric company to charge a battery when its cloudy…
And gee, where do those batteries come from anyway?
And what do we have here? Telsa pays off loan 9 years early:
http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/05/tesla-pays-department-energy-loan-nine-years-early/
How would you like your crow?
Yes. Many of the things we do to generate electricity are not great. But there is a lot of stuff on the horizon that will lower the cost and increase efficiency. Printed solar cells, thorium nuclear, and now people are even talking about cold fusion again, though I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.
The fact of the matter is though, that we shouldn’t be waiting to develop electric cars until those things are in place. Clearly it takes decades to bring electric car technology online, so we need to have it in place. If inventors, investors and governments listened to conservatives, we’d still be cooking our bear meat over campfires.