Be current, get a jolt out of driving your car

By John Gong  |   2008-12-22  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

DRIVING an electric car will soon be a breeze in Israel, rich in wind and solar energy that can power green electric vehicles. Could we ever see Chinese car owners tooling around in shared electric cars instead of showy, wholly owned gas guzzlers? It will take a revolution in mindset to undertake what Israel is doing today.

Backed by Israel's government, Better Place, a new startup company with US$200 million initial funding from Morgan Stanley and Israel Corp, is implementing a new business plan to facilitate "electric" driving.

Better Place will build and run a smart grid system for charging its fleet of EV vehicles, and has contracted for new solar energy from Israeli companies ?? 2 gigawatts over 10 years ?? to power the whole fleet.

"Israel will have the world's first virtual oil field in the Negev Desert," said Shai Agassi, the company founder and CEO.

Better Place's business model is unique in that it is based on the subscription model. Customers do not actually own the car, but sign up for monthly mileage.

Every subscriber will get a car, a battery and access to a national network of recharging outlets across Israel, as well as stations that will swap a dead battery for a fresh one, or even another car, whenever needed.

Best Place's first 500 electric cars, built by Renault, will hit Israel's roads next year.

Electric car technology has a history as old as the venerable internal combustion engine (ICE) that powers most of today's cars.

A simple calculation explains why electric cars make a lot of sense. BYD Auto, a vanguard of EV technology development in China, recently unveiled an EV version of its hot-selling F3 model, called F3e.

The car consumes 12 kwh of electricity every 100 km.

Assuming an electricity price of 0.6 yuan per kwh, the utility bill is only 7.2 yuan (US$1) per 100 km of driving.

The original ICE version, the F3, devours about 7.5 liters of gasoline, averaging about 45 yuan to drive 100 km. At one-sixth of the operating cost, the EV cost savings is overwhelming.

On average, generation of 1 kwh of electricity needs 0.36 kg of coal that produces 0.42 kg of CO2 emissions in the process.

Thus F3e will produce about 5 kg of CO2s emission for every 100 km of driving. Compact cars like F3 will, on the other hand, generate 12-18 kg of CO2 emissions for the same distance, depending on driving conditions.

Besides all the good news, electric cars only have one problem - driving range is limited by the battery pack.

At the current technology level, the state-of-the-art battery, that is the lithium-fe battery, can store about 100 kwh per 1 kg.

Given a battery pack of 200 kg, total battery capacity is only 20 kwh, which can last for about 150 km of driving.

While the distance is adequate for most people's daily city commuting needs, occasional weekend excursions to a far-away place can pose a challenge.

This is where Best Place's new business model comes into play.

Don't worry about that: A charging station near you will take care of it, by either recharging your battery, or swapping it for a new battery, or even a new car.

By taking all the concerns and inconveniences out of the picture, EV in Israel finally looks like it has a better chance than in many other regions.

Can China do it?

Will the same model eventually be introduced to China? China is actually at the forefront of developing EV technologies, both in terms of the electric motor and the battery technology.

BYD Auto is one of the first companies in the world to introduce EVs.

And its lithium-fe battery, at least on paper, shows an impressive list of performance statistics. But like many innovations in the past, the technology itself may not be sufficient to drive its adoption and penetration.

A new business model that is built on revolutionizing car ownership may also be needed.