One Company Plans Pay-as-you-go for Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Imagine driving a car and only paying for the miles you use. That is precisely what Silicone Valley based company Better Place is planning on doing. The company has started building a massive infrastructure of electric charging stations and exchange stations in several countries and hopes that they can make the electric vehicle (EV) catch on like the cell phone did.

The primary goal of the company is to develop electric vehicles (EVs) that will have a range of at least 100 mile or more and build enough charging station to allow the EVs to stay charged to capacity. For trips longer than 100 miles they plan on having battery exchange stations where drivers can switch out batteries in less time than it takes to fill a gas tank. With the infrastructure in place the company plans to make the EVs as affordable as their gasoline counterparts. The main business plan of the company is to have drivers sign contracts to use their EVs and either pay-as-they-go for miles or sign up for a specific amount of miles per month. If the consumer signs a long term deal they will be rewarded with a highly discounted or possibly free EV (source: greencar.com). Sound familiar?

Better Place gets its business plan from one that has already proven highly successful: the cellular phone industry. Like the cellular phone industry, Better Place plans on starting their operations in dense urban areas and expanding from there (source: greencar.com). The idea has already taken hold in several countries.

In a partnership with Renault-Nissan, Better Place is working with Israel Corp. to develop an Electric Recharge Grid (EGR) network of recharge stations and exchange stations throughout Israel. Israel wants to be the first all-EV nation by 2020 and be totally oil free. The country has already installed 400 wired parking spots mostly in and around Tel Aviv and plans on installing 100,000 more (source: greencar.com). Other countries are following the lead of Israel.

Australia is looking to build its EGR in an effort to convert its nearly 15 million gas cars to EVs that are zero emissions. In the United States, Hawaii and California are also going to be participating in the effort with more states likely to follow should early results prove effective. Other densely populated counties like Denmark and Japan also have plans of EGRs in the works (source: greencar.com).

Better Place plans on using lithium-ion battery technology and says the power to charge the batteries will come from carbon-free sources like wind and solar energy. Better Place says it can help implement such technology if need be (source: greencar.com).

So the time is coming in the near future where owning a car will be like owning a cell phone. We will no longer have to pay for the vehicle when it is not in use, but rather pay-as-you-go or pay for a set amount of miles up front. If the plan of Better Place works, it will cost the same or less to own/operate an EV as it does with our traditional gas guzzlers. The only difference is we won't be dependent on oil and we won't be killing our planet.