Better Place Electric Car Infrastructure Primer (VIDEO)

We've followed Shai Agassi's "Better Place" electric car infrastructure proposals with great interest, wondering if places that have struck deals with Agassi (Israel, San Francisco, Hawaii, Australia and elsewhere) will reap the rewards any time soon.

The general idea is that a municipality works with Better Place to build charging stations all over the place, people with electric cars drive around and charge up when they need (paying for the electricity they use, of course), and it has a shot to work because with the city (or province, state or country) involved, they can roll it out widely right off the bat, so the range of electric cars is immediately expanded.

Great -- make it easier for people to give up oil, right? But there are plenty of hurdles to a full-on electric-car revolution.

This new video from WorldFocus isn't a ton of new news, but it's a clear look at the Better Place project, with a little insightful skepticism, to boot. (Why build Better Place if most people wouldn't need a recharge on an average day?)

WATCH:

For more skepticism, check out a Treehugger reader's arguments with Better Place.

Comments

[John Reed 1]

ERA OF THE ELECTRIC CAR – ENVIRONMENT AND GLOBAL WARMING

At present the US uses more petroleum for fuel than all the coal used for electric generation. This will put a very severe burden on our electric power system if we convert our transportation to electric cars. In the foreseeable medium term future the only way to meet the power requirements for electric transportation is coal. Coal fired electricity generation plants can be built quicker and cheaper in the capacity required than other power sources. Other non-fossil fuel power sources can supply a fraction of the required power over time and will supply increasing proportions over time. But coal interests will prevail for some time if the conversion is attempted.

The purpose of the electric car is reducing our dependence on imported fuel and mitigation of global warming. Converting our transportation to fossil fuel generated electricity can meet one requirement, however coal produces considerably more carbon dioxide per unit energy than petroleum does. From the point of view of global warming we are worse off by considerable.

Coal interests and the power generation industry make strong claims for clean coal. Their definition of clean coal is removal of toxic products of combustion, not removal of carbon dioxide gas. No clean coal plants exist nor are likely to exist capable of supplying any reasonable share of power generation for the electric car era. Enhanced global warming will be the result.

[Ghost of Mother Jones]

Corporate Propaganda.

[GhiaccioPronto]

unsafe at any speed.

[newshawk14]

I think what makes the most sense, is to replace USPS local delivery mail delivery vehicles with all electric vehicles, routes are short and it requires a lot of stop and go driving. You might next want to
go after UPS and FedEX vehicles, next would be school buses, which are relatively short range. I
would not advocate going whole hog, until we've proved the technology and picked the areas where
success is most probable. The applications that I've suggested are for vehicles that are only active
for part of the day, and the recharge time is not a problem. Long haul trucks, being driven 24 hours
a day, are not ready to play a part in this picture yet.

[research]

Ain't going to happen.

Would you trust some random battery?

High current contacts require bolts.

[Prole-NY]

There are plenty of reliable high current contacts that do not use bolts - in switchgear and in plug/receptacle combinations.

I think that an electric car with a small 'range extender' genset has a lot more potential than this battery-swapping idea, particularly if the genset prime mover (engine) can be swapped out or modified for whatever biofuel becomes widely available. Examples are GM's E-Flex/Volt vehicles and the Raser/FEV system in development.

Aside from the technical arguments, the monopolistic and Big Brother aspects of the Better Place scheme don't appeal to me either.