Electric cars find better place in Israel
Cut above the rest
Israel’s goal to take the country off oil appears to be within sight with a private start-up company all set to launch its country-wide network of battery switching and charging facilities for electric cars in a year. What makes the firm “Better Place”’ a cut above the rest is the lithium ion switchable battery weighing 200 kg that it devised for the first time ever.
At first sight, the electric cars available for test drive at the firm’s visitors centre here look just like ordinary sedans with sleek features and a five-seater capacity. However, it is only when the Renault Fluence’s engine has to be switched on that something different becomes apparent.
“Press the brake pedal and push this button,”said the instructor who accompanies such test drives along a 1.5 km track at the centre. A group of visiting Indian journalists who test-drove the battery-powered vehicle had a smooth ride in the gearless car racing up to 70 km per hour along the curving track. However, the instructor said the speed would touch higher notches on a better terrain. The company was unwilling to name the leading car makers which had reportedly agreed to convert a specific number of internal combustion engines to electric vehicles.
Owned by Shai Agassi, Better Place is in the process of setting up over 1,000 battery switching stations in the country. Alternately, the charging units can be installed at home or at the parking lot in the office. “This way, people will be able to leave their vehicles for charging when they are at home or in office,” said a spokeswoman for Better place. She said the cars would be competitively priced to the ones in the market.
A fully charged battery will be able to run for 100 miles before the next charge which can be done either from charging units or switching stations being installed along the highways. Visitors to the centre here are shown how a discharged battery can be swapped with a charged one in less than five minutes. Agassi who spoke in an interactive presentation at the centre said that the batteries were not only environment-friendly but also fully rechargeable. Consumers would have an option to subscribe monthly for the facility which charged only the kilometres run that would include the price of battery switching and charging.
After its launch in Israel and Denmark, Better Place is poised to set up its facilities in Australia, Japan, Canada, Hawaii and San Francisco.
