Novel Idea To Spur Electric Vehicle Sales

Speaking of Electric cars, Israel-born entrepreneur Shai Agassi started a company that aids consumer confidence in purchasing an electric car. At Better place, robots in charge of replacing depleted batteries located under your vehicle much faster than the time to fill up your gas tank.

Agassi said “When electric cars are more affordable and convenient than gas cars, consumer adoption will tip the market,”. Better Place proposes building a network of curbside charging stations where owners can top off their vehicle batteries. Agassi’s idea generated $300 million in venture capital and sparked international interest: Cities in Israel and Denmark hope to have the first robotic change stations running in 2011, and the company aspires to expand operations to Australia, Canada, Hawaii and California in 2012. In late September, Better Place signed a deal with Renault-Nissan to put 100,000 electric vehicles on the road in Israel and Denmark by 2016.

So here is how the system functions :

• Better place will own the batteries along with the infrastructure for servicing them. Hence the owner does not need to worry about worn out battery performance over a period of time which is extreemly costly to replace.
• Those have some time to spare can opt for an electric plug so that drivers can top off at curbside charging
• Gps-enabled software in the car will alert drivers when they are running low on battery power which then directs them to the nearest quick-charge station along their route.
  

The following shows how the whole process is completed within 1 minute 30 seconds on an apparently Electric Nissan Rogue.


The electric 'Fueling Station' will solve many if not all the issues afflicting the future of electric vehicles especially high density areas where most of its residents lives in high rise buildings. The need of having an electric socket in every parking lot is eliminated along with the risk of electric theft. Kudos for making the world....a Better Place.

Source : Popularmechanics.com