Israel to use mobile phone economics in bold electric cars venture

Stan Beer
Thursday, 24 January 2008 11:00

Opinion and Analysis

Just as importantly, by Agassi's own admission, is the involvement of major car makers Renault and Nissan, both of which will produce electric versions of existing models of cars for the venture. Israel's tax break on electric vehicles, however, will make the electric cars much cheaper (Agassi claims half the price) of the heavily taxed petrol versions.

Israel is considered by Agassi and others to be a good test bed for the vehicle electrification project because it is a geographically small country with a large driver population. However, what goes for a country like Israel could equally be applied on a city by city basis in geographically larger countries.

The current state of battery technology and battery economics has led many electric vehicle advocates to the conclusion that electric cars at present are practical only for inner city and suburban driving. However, the vast majority of drivers in the US (around 78% by some estimates) drive less than 64km (40 miles) a day, which is why GM plans to release its plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt with that particular all electric range in 2010.

If Project Better Place can actually deliver inexpensive electric cars with a 200km range together with an infrastructure to charge and replace batteries within major cities then the model could well prove to be a viable replacement for petrol driven cars within cities. For intercity driving, range extended plug-in hybrid electric vehicles like the Volt could do the job.

For the usual naysayers who claim that electric cars simply shift pollution from the tailpipe to the electricity power plant, it suffices to say that there are many reasons why this isn't the case. While many power plants use polluting coal, there are many that don't and it is possible to buy your electricty from purely green sources in many countries. It is even possible to charge an electric car directly from your own solar panels.

And even in cases where the electricity is produced from coal burning plants, most of these plants waste so much electricity at night when demand is low, that many cars could be charged in non-peak periods without increasing the load. Then of course there is the additional argument that coal, while not ideal, is unlike oil plentiful in many geopolitically stable countries. So at least while cleaner alternatives to coal fired electricity plants are developed, the world will not be held hostage to oil politics.

It's strange but perhaps fitting that the ideas that are helping to make electric cars a reality are coming as much from Silicon Valley, the home of information technology, as much as Detroit, the home of auto motoring. It's not just that the same battery technology that powers mobile phones and portable computers will be used to power cars. It's also the business model that has succeeded in making the mobile phone the most widely used appliance on the planet could prove to be answer to making electric cars an economically feasible proposition for ordinary consumers.