Shay Agassi’s electric car venture Better Place LLC has signed a strategic agreement with Sonol Israel Ltd. to place electric car recharging points at Sonol gas stations. Better Place will bear the installation and operating cost of the recharging points.
Better Place Israel CEO Moshe Kaplinski says that electric cars are scheduled to enter the Israeli and other markets this year, and that the company is rapidly moving forward on deploying the necessary infrastructure nationwide.
The battery replacement terminals will operate alongside Sonol’s gasoline and diesel pumps. The system provides for the rapid and safe removal of the empty battery from the car and its replacement with a fully charged battery within minutes. “The transportation industry is about to undergo fundamental change,” said Kaplinski. “Over the past year, Better Place has deployed its recharging infrastructure at parking garages, entertainment and commercial centers, office buildings, and private homes.”

[Source & Read More:  Globes]

It’s been a long time coming, but China’s BYD Auto will finally stage the European premiere of two of its electric vehicles at the 2011 Geneva International Motor Show.
The updated 2012 e6-Eco and the independent 4WD dual mode electric SUV S6DM will be introduced at the event as BYD also presents its Three Green Dreams strategy highlighting the core technology of the BYD e-Bus K9 and the dual mode electric vehicle F3DM that focuses on affordable solar power, environmentally friendly energy storage and electrified transportation.
Equipped with a lithium-ion battery pack, the 2012 e6-Eco has an expected range of 186miles and takes around 40minutes to completely charge with a 100kW quick charger.

[Source & Read More:  The Green Car Website]

China is aiming to put more than a million electric vehicles onto the road each year by 2015, according to the state-run People’s Daily. It claims that new plans for the auto industry are about to be published and will make “new energy” – electric and hybrid electric – vehicles a national priority.

China’s long-term target is for 100 million new cars and buses to be produced each year by 2020, it says. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is pledged to invest more than 100 billion yuan over the next 10 years to support new energy vehicle production, “in order to make China the world’s largest new energy automobile production country”.

[Source & Read More: Guardian]

Probably not the battery that you want to put on your vehicle, but that seems to be the battery that most people are trying to buy. It has unfortunately become the cliché that whenever a battery buyer approaches a battery company the first statement heard is, “Don’t tell me anything about how special your battery is, just tell me the dollar per kilowatt hour ($/kWh) price.”

Now although it’s a useful metric, if it’s taken on its own without context it becomes a distracter as lithium battery chemistries remain different and despite much effort, are not quite ready for commoditization yet. Finding a common yardstick to compare Lithium-ion batteries against is not a simplistic task and is one that leads to great frustration as no two batteries nor customer applications are the same. The $/kWh metric has unfortunately become overused as industry bodies and governments have tried to establish targets of $250/kWh to drive the battery industry towards greater competitiveness.

[Source & Read More: Green Car Congress]