Better Place

Line

• Idan Ofer ( Chairman )
• Aliza Peleg ( VP of Operations )
• Joe Paluska (CMO )
• Moshe Kaplinsky (BP Israel CEO)
• Evan Thornley (BP Australia CEO)
• Jens Moberg (BP CEO Denmark )

Better Place is a on 29 October 2007, founded by ex -SAP Manager Shai Agassi company that wanted to build a nationwide infrastructure for the mass production of electric cars with replaceable traction batteries. Company is based in Palo Alto, California. After Shai Agassi resigned his functions already in October 2012, the Company has made available on May 26, 2013 Israel to file for bankruptcy in order to initiate an orderly liquidation after last financial negotiations had failed.

• 4.1 Israel
• 4.2 Denmark

Business Model

According to Shai Agassi is the company name, originally Project Better Place, which emerged from a question by Klaus Schwab at the World Economic Forum 2005: " How do you make the world a better place by 2020? " How we can 2020 make the world a better place? Agassi saw a solution to this question lies in moving away from petroleum for private transport.

Several cities and countries could be convinced of the chances of implementation of the company philosophy - to them were Israel (commissioned in 2011), Denmark and Japan ( field trial with battery exchange stations since May 2009). In the planning phase, even Hawaii, San Francisco Bay Area, Ontario and the south-east coast of Australia were; However, the company announced in January 2013 announced its intention to initially focus on Israel and Denmark.

Specifically, the business of the company should work as follows:

• The customer buys an electric car without the battery from any vehicle manufacturers (at the moment only Renault - Nissan), the accumulator, however, is owned by Better Place.
• The energy required for driving ( Battery and power ) is offered by Better Place. With the support of a sophisticated software, the customer pays only mileage covered, similar to a mobile phone contract.
• Planned are batteries with a range of about 160 km. These will be charged to the customer at home, at work or in public parking lots with purpose-built stations.
• For longer distances, fully automatic Akkumulatorwechsel stations are established in which the exhausted battery is automatically replaced with a charged one.
• The vehicles are generally driven by environmentally friendly electricity generated from wind turbines and solar power plants.

Conducive to the business model was the spin-off of the high prices for traction batteries from the cost, which should, however, fall steadily, and the relocation of the lifetime risk by the user to the operator. Assuming that the exchange stations have ready a large number of a few types of batteries, this could have played an important role in buffering power on the power line. The settlement of the exchanged energy would have been very easy in this case. For the end- user would be the rapid automated " tank - operation " and the certainty of being able to travel long distances by e -Mobil, have been very attractive.

Retardant for the business model was the need to impose one or a few battery types and the necessary storage and exchange of necessary uniform mechanism whereby the design freedom of producers and their influence was severely restricted on the Traktionsakkumulator as the most expensive single component. Also necessary for the settlement inspection of vehicles is seen for privacy critical.

Important and indispensable, however, seems to be a standardization of designs, dimensions and performance by international and EU bodies to avoid a guy sprawl as in mobile phone batteries and chargers and camera batteries.

Electric vehicles

For the development of electric cars, Better Place had won the company Renault - Nissan. In the development of the battery Better Place worked ( AESC ) with A123 Systems and the joint venture Automotive Energy Supply Corporation. Should be used in lithium - ion batteries, which should ensure a range of 100 km Meilen/160.

Z.E. Concept

Z.E. focus is (zero emissions) for zero emission. From several Renault electric cars were introduced to the project, such as the Renault Fluence ZE, Kangoo ZE the or ZOE. In order to optimize the reach of the power consumers were designed especially economical in addition to the engine such as lighting, heating, air conditioning. Patrick Pelato Renault announced the production 20000-40000 electric cars from 2011 and more than 100,000 in 2012.

Investors

Better Place was financed by venture capital investment companies, including of Acorns to Oaks II, Esarbee Investments Canada, GC Investments, HSBC, Israel Cleantech Ventures, Lazard, Macquarie Capital, Maniv Energy Capital, Morgan Stanley, Musea Ventures, Ofer Brothers Group, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Vayikra Partners and Wolfensohn & Co. principal shareholder was most recently Israel Corp. ..

Country Projects

Israel

Shai Agassi, himself an Israeli, the company launched a project in Israel. The country with a maximum distance of 150 km between urban centers and with a population in which 90% of the car owners daily at 70 km driving distance seemed ideally suited for the designed cars with its range of 160 km. The government of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert signed with Better Place and Renault- Nissan signed a contract with the aim of establishing an infrastructure by 2020, which should make Israel 2020 on oil independent.

CEO of Better Place Israel was Major General A.D. Moshe Kaplinsky, former Deputy Chief of the Israeli General Staff.

In March 2011, Better Place, presented the plans for the construction of 40 battery exchange stations. There were 400 agreements over charging points, 200 charging points should be realized by the end of 2011.

Denmark

Denmark also has a meaningful for an electric car project size. Contractor, Better Place Renault were here also and as an energy supplier Dong Energy ( Danish Oil & Natural Gas).

In Denmark should be implemented with an investment of 103 million euros, the European project of Better Place. The former IBM executive Jens Moberg, CEO of Better Place Denmark, therefore, also head of the business unit Better Place Europe, Middle East and Africa Business Development was appointed.