Project Better Place Might Charge Up SF
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is in talks with electric vehicle startup Project Better Place about building the infrastructure for a fleet of plug-in cars in the city, including parking meter charging stations and battery replacement stations.
Newsom traveled to Israel last week to meet with representatives of the company. The mayor’s office tells us that during a luncheon with Moshe Kaplinsky, CEO of Project Better Place Israel (pictured after the jump with the mayor), and Aliza Peleg, a rep from the startup’s U.S. offices, Newsom offered to work with Project Better Place if it would consider doing a test project in San Francisco. Newsom also met with the company’s chairman, Idan Offer, at a reception earlier.
The city is already in early talks with private companies that could potentially work with Project Better Place to build an electric vehicle infrastructure, according to the mayor’s office. Newsom was also said to be “very impressed” with the Project Better Place’s team in Israel.
If San Francisco does do a deal with Project Better Place, it would be the first city in the U.S. to get on board with Shai Agassi’s electric vehicle infrastructure plan (with three cars, San Francisco currently has one of the largest plug-in hybrid fleets in the country). This is the first we’ve heard of Project Better Place being in serious discussions stateside; we’ve tried to contact them for comment and when we hear back, will update the post.
Project Better Place also showed off a prototype of its electric vehicle in Israel over the weekend. But by then, Newsom had already jetted back to the States to speak at the New Yorker’s “Stories from the Near Future,” conference. In his talk, he described Project Better Place’s plans in Israel, saying that San Francisco wants “to be the first city [in the country] to adopt that strategy.”
Video courtesy of Israel21c. Golden Gate Bridge photo courtesy of http2007.
[...] Edit Staff, Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 12:54 PM PT Comments (0) Shai Agassi’s electric vehicle infrastructure startup, Project Better Place, may be coming to San Francisco. The company is in talks with Mayor Gavin Newsom about building the infrastructure for a fleet of plug-in cars for the city, including parking meter charging stations and battery replacement stations. Newsom last week traveled to Israel to check out the company’s operations there, and was said to be “very impressed” with its team. Earth2Tech got the full scoop from the mayor’s office — check out the story here. [...]
Ah yes, 3. The largest domestic fleet.
California, always so ahead of the game.
[...] mayor, Gavin Newsom, may want to help Project Better Place move to his city, according to Earth2Tech. Better Place is an electric car startup that wants to build recharging stations all over Israel [...]
[...] reports that San Francisco’s mayor traveled to Israel recently to see a prototype system and is in [...]
If Project Better Place published their business plan in English, more people would be able to see that their claim of 7 cents per mile in cost is not credible.
Some numbers. Let’s assume batteries cost $500/kw-hr (which is very low) and they can last for 2000 charge cycles (also optimistic). Now assume 300 watt-hours per mile for vehicle use (also reasonable).
Now crank the math. That works out to 7.5 cents per mile FOR JUST THE BATTERIES! That leaves no money for the rest of the car, no money for the electricity, and no money for the infrastructure needed.
The numbers cited by PBB simply make no sense, unless they’ve invented the miracle battery. If so, they should just sell that.
[...] via earth2tech [...]
[...] Project Better Place: “How can we make the world a better place? One electric car at a time.” - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome, discussing Project Better Place: “[San Francisco wants] to be the first city [in the U.S.] to adopt that strategy.” Get post [...]
The automotive and energy players have largely already decided against battery swapping technology. Except for Nissan, which hopes to control the market with its vehicles there will be limited demand for battery swapping technologies. A PHEV-40 system such as the Chevrolet Volt should account for at least 70% of the daily driving needs of most U.S. consumers, while the consumer retains control of the vehicle. Additionally, PBP missed its chance to work with utilities on developing smart recharging technology. As a result, most utilities such as Xcel Energy are working with smart charging systems such as V2Green’s which utilize a Level 1 or 2 charging system.
[...] the city’s potential plans with electric vehicle infrastructure company Project Better Place (which we reported here) and Newsom said the San Francisco Bay Area wants to be the first region to make a deal with [...]
[...] Gavin Newson of San Fransisco, Enrique Penalosa of Bogota or Gerd Leers of [...]
[...] So what have they done so far? PBP has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Renault-Nissan to build the world’s first Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) model for clean transportation in Israel in January, 2008. And in May, they presented a prototype of an electric car with partner Renault-Nissan who would invest $500 million to $1 billion in developing the swappable-battery electric cars. Now that is an interesting concept that will most likely allure mainstream car manufacturers, swappable-battery packs. Check here for a video interview with Agassi with Earth2Tech. [...]
Gavin Newsom wrote a 10 word Minifesto for Better Place’s new viral campaign. I have the text at my blog: http://israelline.wordpress.com/
Hi Jim,
$500 per KWh is a bit high depending on the type of battery pack and misleading (though not intentionally I’m sure) regardless of battery chemistry. My battery pack is 12 KWh and it cost me exactly $1,000. I admit that I got a screamin’ deal on batteries. Nay, I BRAG that I got a screamin’ deal on my batteries. However, most people spend somewhere closer to $3,000 for a 15 KWh battery pack. That’s $200 per KWh. This type of battery pack would be good for about 30 to 40 miles.
Now, if you want to talk about a longer range EV with a 100 to 150 mile range, you need to look at Li ion. One year ago I priced out a 35 KWh LiFePO4 pack from Thundersky. That pack would have cost me $35,000. Ouch! About a week ago I calculated that the same battery pack from the same manufacturer would cost $18,000. In short, manufacturing capacity is going up, and the price is coming down fast! China actually increased its Li ion manufacturing capacity by 28% last year and now manufactures more Li ion batteries than Japan.
This is why your $500 / KWh is misleading regardless of chemistry. The price will be much lower than that in only a few short years. Project Better Place, Tesla, Nissan, Aptera and many others will be driving that price down even faster once they get their cars into production.
Technically Tesla already has its Roadster in production.
Furthermore, Thundersky claims that its batteries are good for 3,000 cycles (Thundersky does not make the best battery on the market. A123’s batteries will last even longer). The average motorist drives about 12,000 miles per year. That means that the car will go about 120,000 miles before it needs a new battery pack.
How much money will you save by buying electricity instead of gasoline after 120,000 miles? Assuming 0.5 KWh/mi and $0.09/KWh a person will only spend $5,400 on energy over the course of 10 years. If that person were to buy gas at $4.00/gal in a car that gets 25 mpg, he would spend $19,200 in 10 years on gasoline. Well, looks like the battery still ends up costing slightly more. $4,200 to be exact.
However, do recall that battery costs are falling FAST and that gasoline costs are rising FAST. Project Better Place realizes this and they’re planning for the future. The batteries that they’re using will almost certainly make electric cars cheaper than gasoline cars in two years or less.
Any update on this?
@Justin:
Nothing official. Better Place has been quite mum, although Mayor Newsom is very excited.
The latest news is SF has closed its requests for information concerning an electrified car infrastructure and Better Place was among the companies that submitted a pitch.
Read more about it here: 19 Electric Car Players Pitch San Francisco.
And we’ll be sure to bring the latest news as this continues to develop.