Dawn of a new automotive era
THE electric revolution will change the world, according to Shai Agassi, the head of sustainable transport company Better Place.
LEXI LANDSMAN
THE electric revolution will change the world, according to Shai Agassi, the head of sustainable transport company Better Place.
Agassi is an entrepreneur and founder of Better Place -— a US-based company accelerating the global transition to sustainable transportation through building the infrastructure for electric vehicles. He spoke in Sydney at an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce luncheon last month at the Four Seasons Hotel to more than 400 senior business leaders.
“There’s a perfect storm of dynamics driving toward mainstream adoption of electric vehicles, including consumer desire for a clean planet, global efforts to decrease oil consumption, transformation in the auto sector and significant investment in technology,” Israeli-born Agassi, 41, said.
“The combination of these factors is propelling the dawn of a new automotive era.”
The electric vehicle is due to be demonstrated at the Frankfurt Auto Show in two months and “it will change the world”, Agassi said.
“It will be the first mass produced, zero emissions, no oil, no gasoline, no petrol car to be produced in the hundreds of thousands.”
Agassi used a film to demonstrate how the electric vehicle would exchange ready-charged batteries at swap-and-go exchange stations in under a minute, as opposed to the average seven minutes it takes to fill up on petrol.
“It’s a fantastic project and it’s on target. When it’s done, it will show that we can actually tackle a problem of immense magnitude, with the ingenuity of very few people -— 170 people right now, 400 more contractors -— with speed unprecedented but with profit. It’s about time Israel was seen as a solution, not a problem.”
Ultimately, Agassi said, humanity had a moral decision to make.
“Do we want to destroy the planet before our kids get to enjoy it, or do we want to make the right moral decision? I guarantee you — if we make the right moral decision, we get a great economy. We make an immoral decision — we will lose our economy within days of losing our morality. That’s the choice we have to make.”
A multi-national survey conducted by Better Place Australia, released last month, revealed more than one in three car buyers (39 per cent) in eastern Australia were interested in an electric vehicle for their next car purchase.
Evan Thornley, CEO of Better Place Australia, said the findings indicated that Australian car buyers were concerned about climate change and viewed electric vehicles as a positive solution.
“The mass adoption of electric vehicles in Australia is inevitable because consumers clearly want the superior environmental and economic benefits electric vehicles deliver,” Thornley said.
Better Place plans to roll out the infrastructure in Israel in 2011, and across Australia in late 2012.
Australia is the third country, after Israel and Denmark, where the Better Place electric vehicle infrastructure will be deployed. According to Agassi, it marks the largest collaboration between Australia and Israel.
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