Better Place Global Electric Car Network Gains Foothold in Silicon Valley

Last week, the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland held a press conference to announce that the Bay Area would be home to America’s first electric car network, to be designed by Better Place, Shai Agassi’s electric car company. Better Place plans to build a network of charging stations which will enable the drivers of its electric cars to plug in wherever they go. Mr. Agassi has already signed on his native Israel, as well as Denmark and Australia, but until Thursday he had yet to secure a commitment from the US.

Building the network of charging stations will require an untold amount of permits and, obviously, cooperation with the local electric utility, which is something that politicians can help with more. The three mayors have outlined a nine point plan for making the Bay Area the “electric vehicle capital of America”. Among those points are helping out with the aforementioned permits, as well as buying lots of Better Place cars for municipal fleets and providing incentives for businesses to build charging stations on their property.

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Comments

[ZAP Alias]

Project Better Place is fining takers all over the world simply because EVs are becoming popular all over the world. People see them as a way to reduce pollution, their own carbon footprint, dependence on oil etc. and wish to embrace this technology as a viable alternative to gas guzzlers.

[Sherry]

Jeff Wilson talked about this in his recently released book The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence NOW. I found it fascinating but thought it a bit futuristic. It is exciting to see the very plans he talked about in his book beginning to unfold NOW. Go Hawaii, Go Better Place, show the rest of the world how to do it…and go Jeff Wilson and your new book The Manhattan Project of 2009

[DIY Electric Car Guy]

I wander if these proposes electric charging station can be used by DIY electric car drivers. Some people prefer to convert they existing gas driven car to electric and they would also need charging station to charge the batteries.