A company called Better Place and emerging rivals plan to offer pay-per-mile plans, similar to cell phone minutes. A family would buy a car but Better Place would own the battery, offer charging stations, and swap out batteries as needed to extend the driving range.
The cost of building charging systems will be more than $320 billion over the next couple of decades, although health-related savings due to less vehicle pollution could be $210 billion, according to the University of California study by economist Thomas Becker. The Berkeley analysis predicts that the per-mile cost of making and charging batteries, including the cost of building a charging system, would be similar to or somewhat less than a gasoline car, depending largely on whether petroleum prices rise.
Back in May of this year, Better Place achieved a milestone in accelerating the mass-market adoption of electric vehicles by demonstrating the world’s first battery switch technology along with electric car charging spots in Japan. Better Place showcased its battery switch platform using a modified Nissan electric crossover SUV to demonstrate how to switch a depleted battery for a fully charged one. The company also demonstrated its commitment to open network standards by charging a fixed battery, electric car, via one of four Better Place charge spots installed at the demonstration site. Recharging of the vehicle batteries was made possible by Sharp Corp. PV solar panels, ensuring that the process was emission free.
“Japan has always been at the forefront of automotive engineering and design and maintains a strong sense of environmentalism,” said Kiyotaka Fujii, President of Better Place Japan and Head of Business Development for Asia Pacific. “The launch of Japan’s electric vehicle study is an important milestone in achieving a zero-emission transportation society, and our successful demonstration of charging vehicles with both fixed and switchable batteries is an important contribution towards moving the entire industry forward.”
The automated switch process, which takes about a minute, is faster than filling a tank with gasoline, providing a cleaner, more convenient experience for drivers. The technology safely and quickly removes a depleted battery and transfers a fully charged battery into the vehicle. The process is seamless and automated, and the driver remains in the vehicle the entire time.
The system works with two robotic battery shuttles on an automated track system. One battery shuttle holds the fully charged battery, which will be inserted into the vehicle, while the other shuttle simply removes the depleted battery from the vehicle. At the end of the process, the track system returns the removed battery to a storage bay for recharging and preparation for use in another electric vehicle. The battery shuttles are designed to work with a wide variety of battery enclosure sizes and shapes for universal application to a range of electric vehicles.
Better Place is also partnering up with the Renault-Nissan Alliance in Israel to enable zero-emissions mobility throughout the country by 2011 by deploying battery switch stations as well as a steady and reliable supply of vehicles adapted to accept the switchable-battery layout required by the Better Place business model.
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