Guest writer Brian Blum is an owner of a Better Place car in Israel. Now faced with uncertainty as to how he can charge his car for long range drives, he says that Better Place failed because drivers bought a car, but really it’s more like a personal bus.
It gets hot in Israel, so two local entrepreneurs have invented a water-saving device called the Q-Fog to keeps cyclists cool. Pump a lever on the handlebars and presto – instant air con!
Following Sunday’s news that Israel’s Better Place has declared bankruptcy we have to ask: what is going to happen to the 900+ car owners who signed on for the electric deal, one that promised switchable batteries at 37 stations throughout Israel? We speak to one car owner to find out.
Tesla Motors, the California maker of prestigious and high priced total electric sports cars is still to become a true reality in most countries of the Middle East where men prefer big, gas guzzling cars. But it might fill the gap after the failure of Better Place.
It is a sad day. Better Place’s battery swap technology is an obvious and practical technological solution to a basic problem of physics and electrochemistry, it is both dangerous and difficult to rapidly charge a chemical battery.
It seemed like a sure thing five years ago, but today Israel’s Better Place electric car company has pulled the plug on its electric car network in Israel as it files for bankruptcy today.
The Israeli EV company Better Place hasn’t been having an easy ride. Despite nearly a billion dollars in investment Better Place has failed to really convince the Israeli public that a swappable electric battery is the way to go. Its partner car and battery builder Renault have also lost the faith in Better Place
Dubai police have announced the latest acquisition to their fleet of cop cars: a 700 horsepower Lamborghini Aventador. Unlike scofflaws in Saudi Arabia who risk a trip to “chop-chop square”, criminals in Dubai’ may now face a white-knuckle ride in one of the world’s fastest and most expensive cars. The supercar, which can reach speeds [...]
Having just returned from Lamu, Kenya, where there is no other way to travel but by boat (or plane or donkey), it seems strange to me that it has taken modern Cairo this long to come up with the idea of a water taxi. But there you have it. Cairenes weary of knotted traffic jams [...]
Among nature’s most devoted heroes throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association (HEPCA) has released renders of a new bio boat that will be used to educate children about the Red Sea’s numerous (albeit largely threatened) bio marvels. Funded in part by the U.S. Forest Service, which has [...]
People who own cars want to at least have the option of taking an extended road trip, which has been a major barrier to the success of electric vehicles to date. Limited driving range and long battery charging times are two challenges that EV industry leaders have been working furiously to overcome, and a company [...]
While some in the United Arab Emirates insist on developing unsustainable vehicles like this solid gold mercedes car powered by biofuel, engineering students from Dubai have been hard at work designing a more modest vehicle that should be able to travel as far as 1,000 kilometers on just one liter of fuel. Ironically, the team [...]
There are currently 1.6 million automobiles on Istanbul’s roads, according to Embarq Türkiye — and each day, 640 more are registered. Following British and German models, the Turkish Finance Ministry has begun designing a new scheme for taxes on motor vehicles and their purchase, reports Turkish paper Hürriyet Daily News. Under the plan, the taxes will [...]
Bertini Derailleur racing bikes like this one were used by Israeli cyclists in the Rome 1960 Olympiad Bicycle riding, including bike sharing in Tel Aviv and traveling by bike in the Middle East have been popular topics that Green Prophet writers have enjoyed sharing with their readers. Those living in urban areas, where bike riding is [...]
Now tourists can try out Better Place swappable batteries. For $65 a day, electricity and battery packs included. Better Place, Israel’s controversial electric car network provider, has had its share of issues and adverse publicity which began to heat up after its iconic founder and international CEO Shai Agassi was sacked this past October. This act [...]
Sixty percent of Morocco’s fuel reserves consists of petroleum and 23 percent of the country’s energy is derived from coal, according to the DESERTEC Knowledge Platform. Yet Morocco has to import roughly 96 percent of its fossil fuel, which is both costly and politically destabilizing. So it comes as no surprise that learning institutions around the North African [...]
The MUV-e folding e-scooter from Israel can be personalized, linked to your smart phone, carried with you on the bus and stored in small apartments without taking much space. Estimated cost about $2000. Urban transportation has recently taken on new and innovative forms, which include gliding along on electric skates, and surfing city sidewalks on [...]
More than a skateboard, less than a car; that’s Renault’s new electric Twizy Tel Aviv’s serious pollution and car parking problems which were partially alleviated with the Tel-O-Fun bike sharing program back in 2011; and with proposed ideas to ban trucks during the morning rush hours. The city’s Municipality may now have an even better [...]
Israelis are not only clean tech startup masters but also – increasingly – big fans of public transportation, which is why Moovit makes such good sense. A dynamic new mobile app that tracks buses, planes, trains and other forms of transport in 30 cities across the globe, this user-generated platform makes getting from point A [...]
Got the Foggiest Notion How to Drive in Desert Fog? Camel caravans and soaring sand dunes demand backdrops of sun-bleached skies (or star-strewn heavens). But what happens when the fog rolls in? Dense fog is a key feature of a desert environment, a natural result of rapid temperature swings. Topography also plays a role in fog [...]
Not long after firing its replacement CEO, the Israeli electric car company Better Place has alluded to Forbes that it will likely close its its North American and Australian operations. Evan Thornley was the CEO of Better Place in Australia and was hired to be the global CEO of Better Place soon after the company’s [...]
If we hadn’t seen the footage, we would never have believed that Tel Aviv’s municipal workers would paint a fake handicap sign around a woman’s parked car in order to collect on the illegal parking and towing fines they then levied. Even worse, they believed they would get away with it. Unluckily for them, they [...]
A few thousand New Yorkers stripping down to their Calvin Kleins in January ..but how’s that behavior fly in a Middle Eastern city with a penchant for modesty? Jerusalem hopped aboard the annual No Pants Subway Ride this month, making January 13th, more precisely, Israel’s first No Pants Light Rail Ride. In case you don’t [...]
The Israeli electric car company Better Place is seeing rough times (it just hired its third CEO in as many months after firing two others), but it has reduced its leasing plan to about $400 a month including charge and battery swaps to attract more customers. Thanks to the millions in marketing done by Better Place, [...]
The 2014 Chevrolet Corvette 2014will be lighter and stronger, thanks to the Israeli company Plasan High performance sports cars, including the gold Mercedes sports coupes burning blends of biofuel are not exactly on most people’s minds as being environmentally friendly. But these are the kind of cars loved by the wealthy and extravagant men of the Middle East [...]
Cadillac’s 2014 ELR; a luxury plug in hybrid for only $55,000 Luxury cars, including biofuel driven gold Mercedes sports coups and sports cars like gold plated Porsche 997 GT2′s are often found in the garages of wealthy Middle East residents where price is no limit to luxury. These kinds of buyers who might want to [...]
The Swiss-made Zerotracer motorbike strutted its super efficient stuff at Masdar City and the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week. Designed by Tobias Wülser as part of his thesis project at the Academy of Art and Design in Aarau, the globe-trotting electric vehicle that “wears its own helmet” traveled around the globe in just 80 [...]
Look! Up in the sky! Is it an office complex? A concert hall? A Turkish bath? Or a parking garage? No, it’s the new ride of an Arab prince – a King-sized jet – one that could hold 800 people. Will you step aboard this airborne greenhouse gas factory? Stuffed inside the fuselage of Prince Alwaleed bin [...]
Not exactly the 2014 Corvette, this smaller and cheaper electric model may be popular for older purchasers and the eco-aware in the Middle East This past year, a lot of adverse publicity issues surrounded the Better Place electric car network company, that included the firing of its international CEO Shai Agassi. This was followed by [...]
Is Better Place hiring a new CEO? In a surprising article in the Israeli business newspaper Globes today, Israel’s electric car network company Better Place seems to have lost its new CEO, Evan Thornley from Australia. This is after a short three months on the job. Thornley was put in place to start a recovery program [...]
The Speed Sisters, the Palestinian women’s motor racing team, are a Middle Eastern first: Independent and passionate, they’ve charted their own roadmap through a male-dominated sport, steering around family expectations, social pressures, community politics and an active military occupation. Zoom out and the nuances deepen – women in nearby Saudi aren’t permitted to drive . Racing is [...]
Dubai International Airport (DXB) will overtake Heathrow as the world’s biggest international airport by 2015. What’s the environmental impact of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) decade of relentless aviation growth? In 2000, Dubai didn’t warrant mention on a register of the world’s Top 100 airports. By 2010, it had soared to 13th place, reaching [...]
They took their pilot run from Europe to Morocco, now the Swiss solar plane will fly across America. Sometime next summer, an airplane with the wingspan of an Airbus A340 but weighing not much more than a Toyota will fly from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., and on to New York. The history-making cross-country trip [...]
Not a head turner but Mitsubishi’s new “buggy” MIEV all electric car is one of the best EV car deals The year 2012 has been a mixed year as far as the success of various models of electric cars and hybrid cars go. Regarding the Middle East, where the luxury Fisker Karma electric vehicle hit [...]
With air pollution 100x worse than NYC the news doesn’t look good for 2013 even though Cairo taxis were offered free natural gas tanks. Two years ago when the Egyptian government began fully implementing taxis run on natural gas, there was much praise and fanfare. Air pollution was at monumental levels in the Egyptian capital [...]
And make it electric? Electrifying Israel’s railway system may cause too much electromagnetic radiation experts warn. Israel’s local and national rail services have often been featured on Green Prophet ever since Jerusalem’s light rail service was completed in 2010, and another light rail line proposed for the coastal city of Tel Aviv .Its national rail service, [...]
Cheaper flights for all? If Qatar’s “Pearl project” can develop the natural gas industry for planes, it could translate into reducing overall costs for US carriers. Qatar Airways ambitious new plan to erect a $19 billion Pearl project that will be the largest gas-to-liquids plant in the world, is receiving massive praise and optimism over its future [...]
On Thursday, Dec. 20, Tzipi Livni’s new party, The Movement, stated that environmental reforms will be key components of their platform in the January 2013 Israeli elections. They propose passing a Basic Law for environmental protection, and a long-term blueprint for the Israeli energy market. Livni presented The Movement’s environmental agenda together with Green [...]
King Mohammed VI rode with French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and head of Moroccan government Abdelilah Benkirane on Casablanca’s spiffy new tramway during its debut run, which traversed the distance between United Nations Square and Mohammed Square on 12 December, 2012. Designed to reduce air pollution, ease vehicular congestion and increase economic development in what [...]
Israel’s electric car concept company Better Place has assured media that the company is able to secure investment to continue its mission of pushing the electric car market forward in Israel and other countries such as Australia and Denmark. Two months after firing its iconic CEO Shai Agassi, the company’s new CEO announced that the [...]