California-based Better Place will establish a Canadian head-office in Ontario. They will build an electric car demonstration and education centre in Toronto to lay the groundwork to help get electric vehicles running on Ontario roads. By May 2009, the Ontario government will release a study which will look at ways to speed up theintroduction of electric vehicles including:
- Financial incentives designed to encourage the purchase of electric vehicles
- Preferred access to transportation grid to encourage the adoption of electric vehicles
- Forward looking procurement policies to speed government adoption of electric vehicles into fleet services where appropriate
- Coordinated public education and promotion of electric vehicles as a mode of personal transportation.
Better Place will build
...an open network of battery exchange stations and charge spots in homes, businesses and parking lots.
...which electric car owners will then subscribe to. Places to charge your Zenn, in other words.
You know, without a lot of fan-fare, the McGuinty Libs seem to be taking a lot of interesting if small steps in the right direction.
This is really interesting, Better Place is actually the same company which is working on the infrastructure in Israel, where they are planning to build the infrastructure, which may eventually consist of 500,000 charging points and up to 200 battery-exchange stations.
ReplyDeleteUnder the plan people subscribe to a Better Place service that includes use of a battery and electricity from charging stations. They then first add eletrical outlets to parking spots, so people can charge while at work. Which won't really be needed, since most people don't drive more than 100 miles a day anyway.
For longer drives, customers will be able to pull into a battery-swap station and get a fresh battery. Better Place, and not individual drivers, owns the batteries, which should keep the price of the cars comparable to gas-powered vehicles.