Changing the Whole Auto Industry, Seriously?

Hey, Friday night, I saw Shai Agassi talking about what looks like very serious infrastructure for electric cars. His approach and company BetterPlace.com have plans for electric cars and what it takes to make it real.

Summary from DeutscheBank: "... Project Better Place's approach has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether."

Looks like this has been vetted and has convinced the governments of Denmark, Israel, and the state of California.

Here's something from Fortune:

As Congress considers bailing out a U.S. auto industry damaged by its dependence on fossil fuel-hogging SUVs, San Francisco Bay Area leaders on Thursday unveiled plans for a $1 billion regional network of charging stations for electric cars.

Silicon Valley startup Better Place will construct the network, deploying thousands of chargers for electric cars on the streets of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. The cities will be linked by battery swapping stations so drivers can travel longer distances. Better Place, founded by former SAP executive Shai Agassi, previously struck deals with governments in Israel, Denmark and Australia to build electric car networks. This is the well-funded startup's first move in the U.S. market. Construction on the Bay Area network will begin in 2010 with commercial rollout in 2012.

John Markoff at the NY Times seems convinced in Reimagining the Automobile Industry by Selling the Electricity

... [Agassi] has raised $200 million from private venture partners, including the Israel Corporation, a large Israeli transportation and technology holding company, Vantage Point Venture Partners, as well as a group of private investors including Edgar Bronfman Sr., the liquor magnate, and James D. Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank. Israel Corporation's $100 million investment was announced earlier this year.

Jonathan Shapira gives us the gist from a DeutscheBank report Deutsche Bank: Project Better Place has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine"

Deutsche Bank has reportedly sent analysts to look at Project Better Place's business plan and concluded that it could be a "paradigm shift" that causes "massive disruption" to the auto industry.

"We see a potential for a paradigm shift in the way vehicles are owned and fueled," the analysts wrote in the report... "Looking at Better PLC's model, we conclude that a pure EV should not be more expensive than a gasoline/diesel vehicle."

According to the analysts, a typical contract would cost $550 a month and provide 18,000 miles a year. Project Better Place would run the charging infrastructure, allowing consumers to charge their batteries at home or at public charging stations.

Deutsche Bank found Project Better Place customers would pay 7 cents per mile for fuel, even after accounting for the cost of electricity and depreciation of the battery. That is very competitive when compared to the 24 cents per mile Europeans pay for gasoline and the 15 cents per mile Americans are paying (at $3 per gallon in a 20 mpg vehicle).

The report even goes so far as to say that Project Better Place's approach has "the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether."

My ten years in Detroit were on the computer and factory automation side of the auto industry. Two observations:

• There are a lot of people who know how to make stuff in Detroit and wherever cars are made
• Entrenched power and mindset within Detroit leadership make it really tough for the auto industry, as a whole, to innovate.

Comments

[JScott]

Yup it takes a game changer to do it. When ya think about it nearly all cars were the same in the USA f from post WWII up until about the mid 70's-all V-8 carbed engines, drum brakes, coil/front (mostly) leaf spring live axle (mostly) rear suspensions, almost no safety/enviromental features until foreign competition and goverment reg's forced them to change.

[Overtone]

Project Better Place reflects a commendable vision . However, to the surprise of almost everyone, batteries may soon be technologically obsolete. Space, since the time of Paul Dirac, is believed by eminent scientists to be chock full of energy. Converting some of this energy, seemingly is now the subject of revolutionary science and technology. Ambient heat is another never before commercialized source of energy. Converting these new energy sources does not violate thermodynamic laws. They open a path to power without the need for fossil fuels. They can replace the need for batteries of all sizes and never need to be recharged.

The first application to automobiles will involve removing the plug and cord from a plug-in hybrid and substituting a generator that converts one of these new sources of energy. This should happen within the next 12 months. It will be a harbinger of the end of the era of fossil fuels.

Next will come replacement of the need for an engine. This should be possible in no more than three years. At that point, cars so equipped will never need gas or oil. Automobile manufacturers can expect to sell every such vehicle they make.

The ultimate application will turn parked cars into power plants. Equipped with fuel-free generators parking lots can be equipped so that very substantial power can be sold to the local electric power utility. No physical connection necessary.

We will then be living in a far better place.

[Plank]

Chevy Volt: 2 cents/mile (gas powered cars cost 12 cents/mile). The annual energy usage is less than what a fridge/freezer consumes.111 Kw of power, 370 Nm of torque, 161 km/h (100 mph) at top speed, Acceleration 0-60 in about 9 seconds.

Please stop bashing the domestic industry and get educated on real American innovations. It doesn't help the debate when you refer to the old GM or characterize all US cars as gas guzzlers. You should also know that , for the 2009 Model Year, GM leads the industry with 20 models in North America that achieve 30 or more highway miles per gallon, based on 2009 EPA estimates.

[Biofriendlyblog]

While I'm sure there are many who would go out and get an electric car, that's not always feasible for everyone.
With gas prices having gone down as much as they have recently - I paid $1.99/gallon just this morning (and a little while later saw Costco gas for $1.84/gallon) - I would think it would be worthwhile for most people to start using a workable fuel additive or fuel catalyst, like Green Plus, in their existing vehicles.
It also would help to reduce automotive pollution: http://biofriendly.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/24/environmental-pollution-facts-you-may-not-know/

[KillTheMessenger]

Electric car start-ups are a dime a dozen. They all have two things in common: naivete and no future.

Both can be seen in the trivializing cost of ownership analysis which needs to pick favorable terms (20mpg vehicles) as comparators to look good. If you did the same analysis with a conventional 40mpg or even 48mpg hybrid vehicle, your business model would be under water.

[JackWOrf]

$550 a month to go electric? As opposed to about $100 a month for gasoline? And you think that that is a viable business model?

[AndrewGalasetti]

Shai's and BetterPlace's plan is so ambitious. We need more people like him to step up to the plate and innovate!

Here's a great article from the August issue of Wired: http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi

Can't wait to see what happens with the project.

-Andrew Galasetti
http://www.lyved.com