By now, many people have heard of the electric car grid project that Israeli entrepreneur Shai Agassi is launching with $200 million capital. Agassi plans to build a grid of charging stations in all parts of the country that would provide a free power charge to electric car batteries. The idea is to provide an incentive for people to buy eco-friendly cars.
The only thing standing in Agassi’s way has been lack of funds for the project…but now the project might be full speed ahead, as car manufacturers Renault Nissan are expected to invest in the enterprise.
An inauguration event of the project will be held on January 21st, and Carlos Ghosn, president of Nissan, is expected to attend and participate, as well as meet with President Shimon Peres.
Jack’s post about the tax benefits for electric car owners made the point that the improvement would only benefit the rich. This incentive of Agassi’s, if it is put into practice, still wouldn’t solve the overarching problem, which is that eco-friendly cars are vastly more expensive than their fossil fuel-powered counterparts. On the other hand, ventures like this are a step forward, and just as important, they bring political and entrepreneurial attention to the issue of air pollution.
Source: Haaretz
The Grid part of the green master plan is very important, and starting to get the attention it deserves. Companies who build EVs like Tesla and Zap are doing the innovations on the vehicle side of things, and we need the grid to catch up to the technology’s potential.
This shabbat was my first sighting of an electric car in Israel (electric, but “also “gasoline powered”, it said on the back). It was rolling on so quietly on battery power alone that I did not notice it behind me till I turned around. I jokingly asked the driver if this was “Shabbes drive?”
ken yirbu
Questions that should be asked (but probably wouldn’t) are….
– What would be the ecological cost of all these stations? ….this plan entails building a new infrastructure altogether. How long would it take to neutralize this impact?
– These batteries would work on electricity sourced from coal, how is this “ecological”?
He probably has good intentions, but seems like a lack of actual actual know-how of “green”…. I hope he reads treehugger.com 🙂