"BetterPlace" Electric Vehicles headed for infrastructure deployment in Austrailia

[BlueStateMind]

Saw this on the New York Times website just now.
I've got to say, aside from GM's embrace of the VOLT vehicle, this really seems like the next big thing to me.

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Better Place Goes Down Under to Electrify Australia
By CRAIG RUBENS, GigaOm

Better Place announced this afternoon that it is heading Down Under to deploy its electric car infrastructure in Australia. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup is working with Australian utility AGL Energy to build an electric car charging grid powered by renewable energy. Macquarie Capital Group will finance the AUD$1 billion ($671 million) undertaking. Starting in the heavily populated areas around Melbourne and Sydney, Better Place plans to have the infrastructure up and running by 2012, when its automotive partner Renault-Nissan will start selling electric cars all over the world.

So why has Better Place decided to set up shop in one of the world’s Top 20 most polluting nations? Better Place knows that size matters, and while critics say the model can only work in diminutive markets like Israel and Denmark, the company needs to show it can scale. If founder Shai Agassi can make it work in Australia, the world’s largest transportation island, he should be be able to make it work anywhere.

Better Place’s Australian debut follows a year-long shift in Australian politics toward a greener government. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol his first day on the job and has made energy and climate change top priorities. Rudd wants to set up a carbon trading scheme by 2010 and has set the target of generating 20 percent of the country’s power from renewables by 2020.

It won’t be easy. Australia is the world’s third-largest producer of coal and generates 80 percent of its power from the sooty stuff, according to the World Coal Institute. But the country also has vast wind, solar and geothermal resources. The government recently invested AUD$50 million to tap more geothermal power and estimates that the country could produce 22,000 megawatts of solar power by 2020. AGL says it will accelerate its renewable energy plans, specifically wind energy, which can work very well with a fleet of charging EVs at night.

The government is also working to clean up its auto industry and created the Green Car Innovation Fund, which will make AUD$500 million available for automakers to build greener cars. Car ownership rates in Australia have been climbing steadily and Better Place estimates the country — which boasts a population of 21 million — bought 1 million cars just last year.

Agassi said in a statement that all these factors create “a compelling case for automobile manufacturers to jump in and build clean, safe, affordable electric cars for Australasia and Southeast Asia.” Already Better Place is using its newest partnership to encourage more countries to go electric. There are plenty of smaller transportation islands through Southeast Asia that could prove fertile for Better Place’s model.

This is the first big announcement from the year-old startup since March, when it said it would be working in Denmark. Renault-Nissan and Better Place seem to be approaching the country-by-country electrification of vehicles like a formal dance. “Sometimes we lead and sometimes Renault-Nissan leads,” Better Place told us today. “In this today case, we’re taking the lead.”
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This is actually really exciting to see. I've been an EV buff ever since I was a kid and they had a battery go-kart race at the college in my hometown.

All this movement on EV coming from different fronts.

I think that this model, Selling EV access like a cell-phone plan can work in Australia. even with the vast expanses of space that need to be covered moving from place to place, but this can only be a step in the right direction for Australia. It's cool to imagine something like this taking root in, say the I-95 corridor or Southern California.

could this work for us too?

[excess_3]

1. in most places, the grid already exists ..n/t

[kristopher]

2. Actually it doesn't.

There is an Information Technology component that needs to be added to enable the system. You might want to google the principals in the article and see in more detail what is being discussed.

[wtmusic]

3. Despite Australia's size

most of the travel occurs on the East coast through a few well-defined corridors. Sounds like the perfect launchpad for Agassi's vision.

[60TrenchesGone]

4. When is this technology going to come to the US?

We need this Better Place EV technology in America.

Why aren't states and major metropolitan areas in the US already working on their own grids. We've got Israel, Denmark, and now Australia working on this system and meanwhile we're still tinkering with technologies that all still rely on oil.

Of course now that gas prices are falling again people are going to become complacent and get lax about updating our automotive technology before it's too late. Has there been any discussion of bringing this stuff to the US?

[wtmusic]

5. The petro/auto lobbies have a stranglehold on this administration

and the scale of the US is too large for a startup. Once it has proven itself in Denmark or Australia, and Obama is in charge, it could fly here IMO.

Welcome to DU

:bounce: :toast: :bounce:

[TorxPower]

6. If you consider the geography of Austrailia this could work in CA

Seriously what's so different about Australia from California? Similar terrain, similar spread out metropolitan areas mixed with pockets of suburban developments and bedroom communities. There's no reason this Better Place network couldn't be implemented in a state like California.

Then of course if it can work in California, it can work in any US state including Texas, Florida and Alaska. C'mon guys get to it!

[kristopher]

7. Xcel testing hybrid that can fuel grid.

Xcel testing hybrid that can fuel grid.
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 10/23/2008 11:10:41 PM MDT

Xcel Energy is performing the nation's first large test of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies in Boulder as part of its SmartGridCity project.

The vehicles are able to charge from and discharge power back to the electricity grid, making them distributed- generation sources.

The first phase of the project involves four cars. An Xcel vehicle has been converted to be V2G-capable as part of the SmartGridCity demonstration-home project at the University of Colorado chancellor's residence. In addition, three Toyota Priuses will have special inverters installed that will allow the utility to pull power from the battery of the car during periods of peak power usage.

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_10799217

The writer confuses generation with storage, but I thought this was germane to the thread since many speculate about what is happening here.