Life without oil dependency

About Better Place
A Better Place was founded in October 2007 with the goal to create zero-emission electric cars running on a clean energy-grid. With 200 million in venture funding this is already more than a vision, they are working with governments, automakers and energy companies and are making this goal a reality.

Their Plan
The model is very similar to that of a mobile phone service where consumers subscribe to a service. With oil out of the picture, transportation is transformed into a sustainable service we can all subscribe to.

Think of it like your cell phone. You pay very little for your mobile provider. What you are actually paying for is minute-by-minute access to the provider towers connected together in cellular networks. What you are paying for is airtime, not the phone themselves. The same model will work for transportation.

Replace the phone with an electric car

Replace cell towers with battery recharge stations

Replace cellular networks with an electric recharge grid

Now you can buy miles not minutes

Better Place provides the batteries that make owning an electric car affordable and convenient.

Since Better Place's inception in October 2007, Israel, Denmark, Australia, California Hawaii and Ontario, Canada have committed to deploying the world's first electric car networks. These countries are the first to take the bold step towards greater prosperity, climate restoration and oil independence.

Israel is an ideal adopter of the Better Place model. The average car owner drives less than 70 kilometers per day and like Europe, the taxes on gasoline are very high. Israel also have a growing solar power sector that stands to gain an important new market for its green energy with the electric recharge grid. They are the first nation in the world to declare a plan for oil independence by 2020. They are well on their way and are expected to implement the power electric grid by 2011.

A global leader in environmental policy, Demark announced their commitment to an electric rechargeable grid in March 2008. This is one tangible step towards answering the country's commitment to reducing its CO2 emissions by 21 percent by 2012. Similar to Israel, Denmark's size and gasoline taxes make it an ideal early adopter for Better Place's sustainable transportation infrastructure in Denmark.

With rising oil prices, environmental pressures and increased regulation, the automotive industry is undergoing enormous disruption but the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. A leader in the industry of making a change is Renault-Nissan Alliance. They are the first automaker with the vision and foresight to partner with Better Place, building zero-emission electric cars for its recharge grids. The first prototype of the Renault-Nissan electric vehicle debuted in Tel Aviv in January 2008.

Fact: If the 700 million cars on the road today were powered by re-chargeable batteries, our carbon footprint would be reduced by 10%.

The Better Place model achieves more than just a reduction in pollution and a path away from coal, oil and other fossil fuels. They also overcome the operational barriers that have historically impeded the development of renewable energy: demand, storage and support.

The leader of the Better Place team is founder and CEO, Shai Agassi. Shai wants to be known as the, "End of oil." Shai's career was in software starting a series of start-ups and then working his way up the ranks in SAP to become president of the products and technology group. In 2007 he was next in line for CEO of SAP, instead he left to pursue his interest in alternative energy and climate change and founded Better Place.