Reducing the Cost of Electric Cars - Shai Agassi

[smellyfry]

How can electric car be sustainable when its using laptop batteries that are expensive and deterrioriate so quickly? We all know how lousy laptop batteries are.

The answer is hybrid using electricity generators eg. HHO, Solar, etc.

[MrDANIELDMARTINRIOS]

wow! an intelectual that makes total sense on the side of clean energy!

love him!

[viskaylu]

Finally someone has taken the initiative to educate the the mass on electric cars! Wonderful !

[ArcticMayhem13]

He talks a bit like Barack Obama

[jason1973tl]

Interesting idea. He has basically taken the battery changer idea for forklifts used in large warehouses and applied them to cars.

[JohnCBriggs]

So we have all heard about this for years now. What has Better Place actually delivered? As far as I know, nothing.

[Zamboro]

@JohnCBriggs

You haven't been keeping up to date. There's now a Better Place switch station operational in Tokyo, it services their electric taxis.

[JohnCBriggs]

@Zamboro Thanks for the update. Looks like one switching station, 3 or 4 test mules on a 90 day trial. Well that is better than nothing but still not much more than nothing. There are no production cars, just test mules that they don't dare use for more than 90 days. Still, if they are actually using the switching station daily, that is pretty cool. Any reports on how the test scheme is going?

[AvatarZoye]

@JohnCBriggs Renault had a car in production, Fluence ZE is coming in March 2011, go to website for more information.

[JohnCBriggs]

@AvatarZoye OK, they don't have a car in production, they will have it some time next year. This is a little later than the LEAF and the VOLT but not bad. Looks like a great vehicle. But what has this got to do with BetterPlace? Less and less as far as I can tell. Looks like the BetterPlace charging stations are no longer coming. So that leaves BetterPlace doing the battery switching stations. So what does Renault say about that? Nothing.

[JohnCBriggs]

@AvatarZoye Renault does not even mention BetterPlace in their press release or in interviews. The call the system QuickDrop battery switch and mention it third after standard plug-in and quick charge (which will not be available on initial release). On the BetterPlace win side of the column, Renault is talking about leasing the batteries with a monthly fee. So they have adopted this aspect of BetterPlace.

[JohnCBriggs]

@AvatarZoye BTW where did you see a March 2011 date? I only saw 2nd half of 2010.

[JohnCBriggs]

@AvatarZoye Here is a review of the Fluence that does say early 2011 delivery.

Electric car face off - Nissan Leaf and Renault Fluence ZE go head-to-head

BusinessGreen

[Traviskolber]

@JohnCBriggs Israel is already beginning construction of stations, and Denmark and Australia are following suit.

Agassi expects sale of the cars to begin very soon.

[MysteryManoLove]

Everytime an electric car gets into an accident, the accident scene becomes a HAZ-MAT area. Environmentally friendly my ass. Do you know whenever they find a meth lab, they need a specialized HAZ-MAT clean up crew to clean up the scene? Where are they when one of those silly green cars gets into an accident? Well, there goes the environment.

[yakyakyak69]

Spilled gasoline is NOT Haz-Mat?

[MysteryManoLove]

Not nearly as much as what those Hybrid/Electric cars. I mean road pavements made from oil based products.

[sunnyallthetime]

I'll believe it when I see it.

[Traviskolber]

@sunnyallthetime Go check their channel, they've showed off the Flurence Z.E. multiple times, as well as the switching of batteries. Israel, Denmark, and Australia are already beginning construction of stations, and Agassi promises sales will begin soon.

[funkalunatic]

50 years ago we were excited about humanity going into space. Now we're excited about building electric cars. Can we go back to the space thing? It won'e hurt anybody to bike or ride the bus or make their own electric car if it's really necessary.

[Mastikator]

The space thing was a huge was of money.

[funkalunatic]

It was a waste of money because we never really did it in anything other than a symbolic fashion. Instead of prototyping a space-based industrial supply chain, we spent billions of dollars and killed a few astronauts just to make grade school propaganda and velcro. It wasn't supposed to work out that way.

[Mastikator]

Space-based industry? Dude, it'll be a while before we're high tech enough to make that profitable.

This was the only way it could have gone.

[funkalunatic]

Profitability has nothing to do with it.

[Mastikator]

Then throw your own money in a hole and burn it, I'd rather spend mine on things that matter and might actually make life better for someone.

[terpis]

In effect "socializing" (as much a single firm could) the cost of the batteries.

"Single payer" battery power.

[Smaug84]

Heh, you do realize that the federal government financed a large number of gas stations during & after the building of the interstate system, right? I don't see anything wrong with requiring such businesses carry a form of drag & drop service for batteries. In fact that's the only way electric cars will take hold in the US, since people are worried about the car dying and all.

[Mastikator]

That would only be the case if the batteries would be considered public and funded through taxation.

I think he meant that you buy the car, and get to borrow a battery, which Better Place still owns, and that way only people who buy the actual cars would have to pay for the batteries.

Batteries which are going to become cheaper than fossil fuels pretty soon.

[terpis]

Note the phrase "as much a single firm could".

Better Place won't eat the cost of providing these 'free' batteries...it'll be paid for via passed-on costs - 'taxes' - socialized across all it's electric car customers, presumably in a somewhat higher vehicle price.

The analogy holds perfectly.

If I'm remembering correctly, Thomas Edison considered this kind of battery swap-out idea for his (ill-fated) turn of the 20th century car company.

[Mastikator]

That's not what taxes is at all, nor is it socializm, nor is it free, it's free to use (not the same!).

Socialism would be if other people who didn't buy the car paid for it.

[terpis]

Mastikator Fail.

The way for a Bitter to keep it real is to keep it dead wrong. Swap out the principle as it is, for its caricature.

'Cause slaying straw men is the surest way to hold that smug superior pose.

[Mastikator]

That's rude and irrelevant. You're blocked, troll.

[terpis]

Rude maybe. Irrelevant...not at all.

[the2012report]

Where did they get this old footage of jerry Lewis hawking cars?

[abyssquick]

Solar skin, so the car is charging all the time. Only then will electric cars truly be worthwhile, and off the oil dependence. Give it a few more years, we'll see it.

[cyberdaemon]

Whats the point of having to have an electric car if you 1) need a place what to do with all the batteries that die out in time 2) electricity that they use is mostly produced in a power plants running on fosil fuels.

[ZankDigiTrash]

@cyberdaemon 1) True, 2) very True

Also how environmentally friendly making these batteries?

I believe bio-diesel has more potential than battery cars!!!

[cyberdaemon]

Or that hydrogen cars maybe ? But then again i dont know much about them :P

[cyberdaemon]

Dont forget growing plants and extracting energy (fuel) from them takes energy too.

[Traviskolber]

@cyberdaemon

1. The batteries are 90% recyclable. Better statistic than oil.

2. Solar power, nuclear power, tidal power, wind power, hydrogen power. There are many more options.