Israel launches electric car program

By Michael Kanellos on 24 January 2008

Renault-Nissan, the government of Israel, and an electric car charging station start-up founded by Shai Agassi are mounting an effort to make electric cars part of ordinary life in Israel in the next decade.

According to Agassi's organisation, Project Better Place, it will try to build 500,000 electric car charging stations in the country. At some of these stations, attendants will swap out depleted batteries and put in fully charged ones. And although you can also charge the batteries at home, this method saves the several hours typically required to charge a lithium-ion battery pack made for cars. Renault-Nissan, meanwhile, will ship electric cars to the country in three years or so. Ultimately, the company hopes to ship 10,000 to 20,000 a year.

The announcement was made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, and Agassi in Israel on Monday. Agassi's speech can be found on the Project Better Place site.

Israel has been considered Project Better Place's likely starting point. Agassi is an Israeli and the bulk of the company's US$200 million in funds comes from investors in Israel. The country also relies on imported oil yet it remains locked in conflict with several Arab oil-exporting nations. Agassi in an interview last year said the organisation was concentrating on islands, but added that an island can be part of a continent and isolated in other ways.

Israel is also small, which makes it an easier market for electric cars, as well as companies building electric car charging stations. Electric cars can only go so far without a charge or a new battery. Ghosn said, in a Reuters story, that the company's cars would go about 100 kilometres in the city and 160 kilometres on the highway on a single charge. Some surveys in the U.S. say buyers generally want to see a 200-mile (320km) range on an electric car. The relatively short range of electric cars has been one of the primary reasons they haven't moved into the mainstream, according to electric car execs, battery execs, and some academics. With all of Israel's major cities crammed pretty close to each other, the range problem is by and large mitigated.

Among large car makers, Renault-Nissan is one of the more aggressive when it comes to fully electric cars. At Tokyo's Ceatec conference in October, Nissan execs told CNET that the company wants to start building fully electric cars by 2011 or 2012. The cars will run on batteries being developed under a deal between Renault-Nissan and NEC.

Topics: israel, renault, nissan, electric car, charging station, electric, car, charge, battery

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Comments (6)

  • Rob commented on 05/12/2008 08:26 Report abuse

    It is a little off topic but a lot of information on how to build an electric car, including cost cutting measures and design tips, can be found on Frank Didik's website at: www.didik.com/didik_ev.htm. In particular, check out the section entitled "How to Build an Electric Car", "Didik Turtle or How to build a two person electric vehicle in 14 hours" and "Critical and accurate assessment of electric vehicles". He is the first to truly mention the pro's and con's of electric cars and an excellent history directory of electric cars, starting in the 1800's. Many years ago, Didik was the found of the Electric Car Society.

  • Paddy McCarthy commented on 17/06/2008 05:18 Report abuse

    Electric cars in the cities of the world are definitely needed.Not only would they drastically cut fuel usage,air and noise pollution,but they would free up fuel for long haul or long distance usage.

  • smsinbad commented on 27/05/2008 23:11 Report abuse

    An interesting idea: however, the ultimate trick will be to design a energy/cost effective battery sysytem.Nickel and other minerals are in limited supply, cost* a lot to mine and transport and ultimately fabricate into battery components (*in both $ and units of energy consumption) In the same way that ethanol from corn was never energy efficient, the economics of battery mftr. will need careful evaluation.

  • Dean commented on 25/01/2008 13:15 Report abuse

    objet: The good thing about electricity is that even though it might be coal/oil/whatever *today*, all you have to do is upgrade your power plant and everybody with an electric car is instantly more environmentally friendly! The trick is getting everybody to switch in the first place, and that's where "electric refueling" stations might actually help.

  • objet commented on 25/01/2008 12:09 Report abuse

    It's a step in the right direction, but how is the electricity generated? From solar or wind etc or is it from oil/gas?

  • Dean commented on 25/01/2008 09:19 Report abuse

    "At some of these stations, attendants will swap out depleted batteries and put in fully charged ones." That makes a lot of sense. You also don't have to worry about replacing your batteries every now and then (which would be quite expensive -- here, the cost could be amortized over all your "refills").

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