A Better Place? A Better Place!

| brunocm, on June 30th, 2009

I just saw a post by Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) on twitter linking to this snippet of Shai Agassi’s TED talk about his “bold plan for electric cars.”  Said is Founder and CEO of A Better Place.  His solution to eliminate the world’s dependence on oil is to provide affordable zero emission vehicles (EV’s), an ubiquitous infrastructure for recharging/replacing them, and over time green energy farms to power the grid.   Despite his tremendous success he could use our help in the U.S, to name one place.  Head over to his community site, Planet Better Place, for more info.

The snippet vid is of the final 2 minutes of his presentation (the full vid is under the second link) where Shai makes his poignant closing remarks.   The entire 18 minutes is also well worth viewing.  I am amazed at how far he has come to fulfilling his amazing vision.  Said is a true agent of change.  Along with an alliance with Renault-Nissan, who have committed to making several affordable models (sports cars, station wagons, etc) of EV’s, he has penetrated several markets:  Israel, Australia, Demark, Canada, Japan, and in the U.S: SF Bay area and Hawaii.   It works better in places where the government is willing to make the cost structure work. In Denmark there is a 180% tax on petrol cars, and a 0% tax on EV’s.

If you’ve been under a rock (like me) and don’t know a lot about him, check out his bio on Wiki.

Hope you enjoy.  Thanks for reading.