Green transport campaigner, Better Place, has announced it will build an electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure network Down Under. The announcement from the Palo Alto (California) based company was made in Melbourne late last month, in conjunction with AGL Energy and Macquarie Capital Group.
According to Better Place, Australia is the next cab off its EV infrastructure rank, after Denmark and Israel. It says it will partner with the Macquarie Capital Group to assist the raising of $A1 billion of capital to build and deploy the network, while AGL will provide "zero-carbon" electricity (power generated via renewable means).
Better Place CEO and Founder, Shai Agassi, said that Australia had been chosen to prove the organisation's ideas about EV transportation networks could be scaled. In announcing the infrastructure plans he said Australia could be a test case for networks in the USA and UK.
"We picked Australia to show the model works regardless of how far the urban centres are from one another. The model is scalable and we believe that Australia could be a demonstration product and proof point for the US as well as the UK and the rest of the developed world," Agassi said at the launch of the project.
Agassi likened the east coast of Australia to the west coast of the USA -- "urban centers roughly in a radius of 100 mile each connected through very few transportation arteries which can be effectively turned into electric highways."
"If it can be done between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, you can see the same thing happening in LA [Los Angeles], San Francisco Bay area, right the way up to Seattle," Agassi told the Melbourne press conference.
Agassi said Better Place identified its local partners earlier this year. He also stated the Victorian state government had been supportive of the project.
Better Place says it will start with providing infrastructure in the three main east coast cities and then link those via "electric highways". Agassi said "switch stations" would eventually be positioned at approx 40km intervals on the main routes. However, the company did not announce when the network will be in place, nor was it specific on the nature of the infrastructure it will provide.
Despite a number of attempts by the Carsales Network, Betterplace's spokespersons have not been available to confirm the EV infrastructure timeline nor any other details.
Better Place's website notes Australia has a fleet of over 14.8m vehicles and boasts the seventh highest car ownership rate in the world. It also labels Australians as the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases in the developed world.
Agassi said Better Place's infrastructure plans were the first step towards replacing the oil-based transport economy Down Under. He noted that the Australian Government's $500m Green Car Innovation Fund and Better Place's infrastructure commitment positioned Australia as possessing the most potent EV market in the world.
Better Place has previously announced plans to rollout EV infrastructure in both Denmark and Israel. In the latter case it has announced a partnership with the Renault Nissan Alliance to fast track vehicle availability.
According to Nissan Australia, the company is not yet involved in Better Place's local plans. Indeed, Nissan spokesperson, Jeff Fisher told the Carsales Network the company had little warning about the local announcement.
Nissan recently confirmed Australia would be one of the first markets outside Japan and the USA to get the company's mass market electric vehicles (more here).
The Melbourne announcement by Better Place also caught much of the local auto industry by surprise. Holden, which announced a local future for GM's Chevrolet Volt (pictured, more here) said it had no prior knowledge of the announcement.
According to Better Place's website, the company is "a mobility operator that aims to reduce oil dependence by delivering personal transportation as a sustainable service".
The company was launched in 2007 with $US200 million of venture funding. It says it is "working with partners to build its first standards-based networks in Israel and Denmark," the deployment of which will begin in 2010.
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