Better Place anyone?

There is plenty of infrastructure. Electricity basically covers the entire country. Many many people have outside outlets that can be used to charge EVs. All that is needed is an agreement amongst all those citizens, about the use of those outlets to charge EVs. I have such an outlet, and I allow anybody to charge their car there. If many more than the current one person does, there will need to be some sort of reciprocal arrangement, but that is solvable. If one is waiting for government or big business to do what one wants instead of doing it oneself, one is in for a long wait.

Look at Kickstarter as an example of how large numbers of small contributors can organize and implement solutions without the need for big government or big corporations. In other words, it is your fault (and mine).

 

there is actually PlugShare - EV Charging Station Map - Find the nearest location to charge your electric car! which is user driven website where individuals can either search for a private plug or offer their private plugs as well. it does gain traction every day and in non friendly EV areas of the country, can be a very valuable resource.

but it also goes back to convenience. these sharers are primarily in residential areas so a lack of public amenities like restaurant or the typical tourist traps are not going to be readily available. and the charging will be slow.

but even with those drawbacks, there has already been a tremendous amount of wonderful stories that have arisen from this including a guy who was desperate for a charge because the planned charger was on the blink (guess who was the provider...) so he checked plugshare, found someone who was available within his limited remaining range.

he went there, ended up having to charge at least 2-3 hours to get enough to get to another charger. he got to talking with the provider and found out that they had been in the same army unit 20 years prior and knew some of the same people, some of which the other had lost contact with them

to make a long story short, they are now in regular contact which each other and other long lost buddies. during the past 20 years, they had all lived in a 40 mile radius of each other unknowingly.

but all that warm and fuzzy does not ignore the fact that the only real question here is "are EVs going to be an integral part of our future or not?" if the answer is yes, then when are we going to start building towards that future and how will we pay for it. well, the scope of the money involved takes it out of nearly everyone's hands but very large corporations, (big oil is not likely to get on board with their primary competition anytime soon) and governments who have the ability to issue very low interest long term loans to fund this.

 

Better Place's second CEO in four months steps down

Title says it all.

 

Better Place shuts down US, Australian operations - Globes

 

It was a nonsense idea. The more models of EV out there, a larger and larger variety of expensive batteries they're gonna need at every swap station. Assuming manufacturers were going to want to have their batteries removable. The Fluence ZE is a poor selling EV here despite being cheap. Why? Because it has no luggage space because a huge cube shaped battery is in the boot/trunk to allow it to be removed by BetterPlace. It's hard enough getting everyone to agree on a charge port, let alone a common fitting battery.

He'd have been better installing pay as you go fast charging in various places. Heck, what a complete waste of $600 million! How amazing the charging network would be worldwide for that sort of money.

 

I disagree. I was a taxi driver and I wouldn't touch the Fluence ZE as a cab. Nice inside for the passenger, but not if the passenger has a suitcase or two or a wheel chair (not even a folding one), or a pram/pushchair/stroller.

Here's a picture of one I took last March when I took a Fluence ZE for a test drive. The big cube is the battery. Notice the useful shape of the boot/trunk - not. It was just wide enough for one suit case, but not high enough.



The Fluence ZE is such a flop that they can't give them away! I've seen one with 400 miles advertised for half the cost of a new Nissan Leaf. Nobody wants to lease a battery for £80 per month and nobody wants a car with no practicality.

 

should have made the LEAF the defacto taxi. its used as taxi in Yokohama and had plenty of room for luggage sort of. well it fit all mine but they have policy of only one group per car because darrel and i were willing to share a cab because he only had carry on and I had carry on and suitcase which would have fit but they only take one at a time. (better revenue that way i guess)

 

I thought about a Leaf too, but until there is suitable fast charge infrastructure about, it too is a no go. The official range in Europe is 109 miles, but most people get about 80 miles in summer and down to 50 miles in winter. It isn't viable at that range without fast chargers at airports, railway stations and most towns and cities. A local airport to me was 80 miles away and I charged £80 for the trip. It took a total of 4 hours (there, pickup, loading, return) for those £80's and £20 was fuel. In an EV you don't have the fuel, but you have to get at least a 30 minute charge to come home and time is money.

Then you have the reducing range as the car gets older. At 30,000 miles a year, you're gonna be struggling to get 70 miles a day or 40 in winter after two years. The Prius cost me about £3,000 for 30,000 miles in UK pricing at $8 a US gallon, so even if fast charging was free, you'd still only be taking home the same.

Electric taxi's are the way to go but it needs serious investment which individuals and small taxi companies are unable to make. Electric cars to be used as cabs need a larger range to allow for detours, hot days, cold days, proper usage routes. There needs to be banks of free fast chargers and serious tax breaks for taxi drivers to even consider going electric.

Someone want to help me make it happen? I'm all ears! I was SO close to opening an EV taxi company, I had the name, the web addresses, the phone number all ready to go, but my EV sums just didn't add up and the name of the game is making money.

 

Iam part of EV Focus group for Nissan and just returned from trip to Japan to visit Nissan brass. they acknowledge that public fast charging is a key component of adoption and are committed to putting 500 in the ground over the next 18 months in the US (paltry sum considering they put in nearly 1700 in Japan)

One member of our group Ruud, actually owns a taxi company of LEAFs and has installed his own QC network to service them. he started with 13 and plans to add 30 more (he leases them so long term degradation is not in the picture for him) soon. So it is a viable business.



here the charging is completely free and Andy Palmer stated he sees the same taxi driver charging up nearly every morning when he comes into the office.



here there is no discrimination. all are welcome



dont read Japanese, but pretty sure this says charging session is good for 15 minutes which is good since that is when you get the fastest charge rate anyway. with them scattered so close together, the lower SOC charging reduces heat generation, time to charge and degradation

obtw; probably should have mentioned this soooner, but this post may load slowly...sorry

 

If Nissan wanted it to happen outside of Japan it would!

The lease for a Nissan Leaf here in the UK is a nonsense and not worth the money for the mileages involved. Sure you can get one for £250+vat, if you're happy to cover 6,000 miles per year, but about £1,000 a month for 30,000 miles. At that rate I'd be better buying.

Nissan UK do not allow any other brand to use their fast chargers and they make the dealers fit their own at their own cost. Considering they've only sold about 1,000 Leafs in total nationally, no dealer is going to make a £30,000 charger investment for the convenience of a handful of owners or one greedy taxi company.

I'll also put it bluntly. When I purchased the Prius as a taxi my local Toyota dealership couldn't bend over backwards enough to help and I got a great deal. I can't say what the deal was, but it was good! When I approached Nissan, I got nothing, no help, no discounts, nothing. They wouldn't even lend the car with a charge lead incase I set fire to my house! What does that mentality say about them or their knowledge? The car draws less than commercially available electric heaters or air conditioners, yet Nissan worry it might set fire to my house? Come on, what nonsense.

Nissan Japan and Nissan USA want to sell the Leaf and the sales figures show it. Nissan UK just hope it'll go away and leave them to get on with their business of selling mediocre cars, which is why sales of the Leaf are poor, despite us paying $8 US gallon for petrol and £0.15p/$0.24c a kwh for electricity (less on nighttime rates). If they wanted to sell them, they would. Nissan UK have been promising to 'give away' about 50 or 60 DC chademo fast chargers to the UK but just haven't been able to find anyone willing to install them, apparently, in over a year.

If you're connected with Nissan, check out Activity Stream - Leaf Talk | Unofficial UK Nissan Leaf Owners Forum and see where we're not at compared to yourselves. The Leaf had so much potential, but the roll out was fluffed from the start. Who in their right mind sticks the price up by £2,000 literally days before release and then wonder why sales never took off? Heads should roll at Nissan UK in my opinion.

 

i think the LEAF situation for your area will change dramatically when the plant comes online here in a few months. In the US, we also had some pretty hardline dealers as well. Nissan is being proactive about lowering prices but there is still the legislative roadblocks in many areas that are hampering EV sales. The reason Ruud was able to make his LEAF taxi service work is because of favorable political climate.

That is something that needs to be worked on in every area of the World with the exception of a handful of Scandinavian countries.

 

Better Place receives "going concern" warning - Globes
Better Place Reports Loss Of $454 Million In 2012, Is “Going Concern”

 

On this note.... Carlos Ghosn says no more battery swap cars.

 

And quite rightly. The Renault Fluence ZE isn't selling and I think the reason is the battery lease model. You can pick up a nearly new Fluence ZE with less than 1,000 miles for less than half the cost of a brand new Prius. Nobody wants them. I would buy one IF it didn't have the silly lease where I end up paying £100 per month (or more) to lease the battery for upto 15,000 miles per year. They have to offer the battery lease only option on the car because it could be exchanged in the better place scheme somewhere. So the battery swap idea is killing the Renault Fluence sales.

 

Exclusive: Better Place to file for bankruptcy - The Term Sheet: Fortune's deals blogTerm Sheet -

 

I hate to say it but good.

Now the rope around Renaults neck will be removed and they may be able to start selling their electric cars without the HV battery lease. At the moment you can ONLY buy their electric cars without the battery, but lease said battery for a monthly cost. Trouble is, this works out about £80-£140 ($120-$211) per month, which for most people is more than they'd pay on petrol/diesel. Sure you have the peace of mind that if the battery does go wrong or even go below 75% capacity, that you'd be ok and it will be replaced, but you also have to pay the lease for as long as you own the car - and that's the problem. If you can't sell the car or your circumstances change, you still have to continue paying. Thus the second hand prices of Renault EVs are ridiculous, with massive depreciation; and still nobody is buying.

Now Better Place have gone pop, I hope Renault will allow you to keep the battery (even if it means paying more for the car) and EV's may start becoming more mainstream here. Saying that, Nissan are giving the option of battery leasing on the new UK built Leaf

 

Better Place files for bankruptcy | The Times of Israel
Better Place to be liquidated - Globes
Death of Better Place: Electric car co. to dissolve | JPost | Israel News

 

Agreed, flim flam. What is he trying to tell us that we don't already know? IMHO, there is nothing innovative or difining in his presentation.

Now, if he presented it to our elected politicians and the majority are on board - that would be ground breaking.

DBCassidy