Israel Leads the Way in Electric Cars

Hybrid cars are yesterday’s news. Make way for the EV – battery-powered electric vehicles that use no fossil fuel and run on giant rechargeable batteries. They’re under development all over the world, but the industry leader is Better Place, a California-Israeli startup that plans to begin testing a fleet of hundreds of EV cars in Israel in 2011. Next up: Denmark and test communities in the U.S.
 
Currently, the prototype cars only have a range of 100 miles between charges, but Better Place says that most car trips are local, and few drivers need to go any further than 100 miles at a time. Besides, the Better Place plan calls for plug-in stations that will let you charge your battery anywhere or, if you’re in a hurry, you can drive into a battery swap station. In about the same amount of time it takes to fill up a tank on your fossil fuel guzzler, a robot will remove your empty battery and replace it with a fully charged one. Two minutes later, you’re back on the road!
Israel’s fourth prime minister, Golda Meir, once complained that Moses led the Children of Israel to the only place in the Middle East with no fossil fuel reserves, and indeed – until now this has been a huge problem. But as Better Place advances towards fulfilling its gas-free dream for the world, Israel’s high quotient of innovation seems poised to make the lack of oil irrelevant.
 
A car reviewer for Consumer Reports magazine recently visited Better Place’s demo center and test track near Tel Aviv. If Better Place succeeds, he wrote, “it won’t be the first revolutionary idea to originate in the Holy Land.”