And so it begins again...

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/200...on-valle-1.html

Silicon Valley's $200 million electric car startup
Former SAP (SAP) top exec Shai Agassi unveiled his new venture last night in the pixels of the online editions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times: A startup backed by $200 million that will lease removable batteries for electric cars. The company will also build a network of battery-charging stations and battery replacement centers. It appears that Agassi's company, called Project Better Place, won't spend its considerable cash hoard on developing new battery technology or electric cars themselves. Instead, according to the articles' somewhat differing takes, Agassi seeks to extend the range of existing electric car batteries by making it easy to charge up or swap power packs on the road. The company would make money by renting batteries to car owners and charging them to charge up.

"The business model for the electric cars will be similar to that used by mobile phone operators," the company says on its site. "In the same way that wireless operators deploy a network of cell towers to provide an area of mobile phone coverage, Project Better Place will establish a network of charging spots and battery exchange stations to provide ubiquitous access to electricity to power electric vehicles. The company will partner with car makers and source batteries so that consumers who subscribe to the network can get subsidized vehicles which are cheaper to buy and operate than today's fuel-based cars. Consumers will still own their cars and will have multiple car models to choose from."

 

Sorry- I saw the article on CNNMONEY and thought it was worthy of a post here... I'll review the guidelines, I didn't realize there were different guidelines for this section...

Again, I'm sorry for the bad manners...