Bay Area's big-city mayors endorse $1 billion plan for electric cars
By Matt Nauman
The Bay Area could become the nation's electric-car capital if an ambitious $1 billion plan announced by a Palo Alto start-up — and endorsed today by the Bay Area's big-city mayors, including San Jose's Chuck Reed — comes to fruition.
Better Place, the start-up headed by former high-tech executive Shai Agassi, already has struck deals in Israel, Denmark and Australia to build battery-charging stations and garages where drained batteries can be quickly swapped for fully-charged ones. Today's announcement was the first U.S. deployment of the company's technology. Based on Better Place's preliminary market research, it will take about 100,000 charging stations, 50 battery exchange stations, and a control center to service Bay Area electric car drivers.
"We need to put together a new industry, and it needs to scale very fast," said Agassi at a San Francisco City Hall press conference. He was flanked by Reed as well as Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The mayors committed to a nine-point plan that will set regional standards for expedited permitting and installation procedures, and seek regional incentives for people who buy electric cars, Reed said.
"We're certainly not going to build cars, but we somehow have to get the infrastructure to refuel them," said Reed. "And we can't wait 100 years for the gas-station model to evolve."
Agassi, a one-time SAP vice president, has raised $200 million to fund his vision of an electric-car infrastructure that includes charging ports in parking spaces and parking garages, and a series of battery-swapping stations. In some of the previously announced deals, Better Place is working with Renault-Nissan to supply electric cars. While the auto maker didn't take part in today's announcement, an electric version of the Nissan Rogue sport-utility vehicle was on display outside City Hall.
Silicon Valley already has a burgeoning electric-car industry. Most notable is Tesla Motors, which began delivering its $109,000 electric Roadster model earlier this year and has said it intends to build a factory in San Jose. Think North America, the U.S. branch of the Norwegian maker of small electric cars, is backed by local venture-capital heavyweight Kleiner Perkins and has an office in Menlo Park.
And AC Propulsion announced this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show that the Mini E, an electric version of the Mini Cooper, would use its batteries and drivetrain. AC Propulsion is based in San Dimas in Southern California, but Tom Gage, its chief executive, works in Sunnyvale.
In a related development, Coulomb Technologies of Campbell said it would begin installing charging stations for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids starting next month. Five of those will be located in downtown San Jose, said Richard Lowenthal, chief executive of Coulomb. The company already has orders to install 940 of its wireless Smartlet Networked Charging Stations in 2009 throughout California, he said.
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