The Electric Car, From Cingular?

I've always been enamored with the idea of a fully electric vehicle.  Hybrids are cool, but most of them don't accomplish much in terms of real world fuel savings.  The technology had promise, but I think it got lost when the world went green.  Suddenly being environmentally-conscious was cool, and any technology displaying even the remotest savings was heralded as savior.  The gloss of green, requiring the least inconvenience, was more important than actual results.  So the hybrids that actually produced these, but were ugly (by necessity) to some people, like the Insight and the Prius, were eclipsed by hybrid versions of existing models.  The hybrid civic for instance.  Or hybrid SUVs.  Hybrid SUVs?  That's like a hot fudge ice cream sundae with Meuslix sprinkled on top.

This post is sounding a bit negative, but I don't mean it to be.  I started it like I did as a counterpoint to what I'm really excited about now.  A fully electric vehicle, and a truly functional network to support it.  This guy named Shai Agassi started a company in 2007 called Better Place, to build an electric car grid based on a concept most of us are familiar with.

A quick explanation.  The grid works like a cell phone network.  Better Place makes deals with electric power grid operators across the country to place charging stations as densely as possible.  It then negotiates with these operators for preferential rates on the power they dispense.  Having done that, they build all electric vehicles and sell them for an extremely low price point, creating demand.  Their goal, ultimately, isn't to make money on the sale of the cars.  In some cases they may, like cell phone providers, give the cars away for free.  They'll make their money selling the electricity used to charge the vehicles.  The consumer gets a free or very inexpensive vehicle in exchange for signing a contract promising to pay so much per month for electricity.

In the end, Agassi sees the per mile price of electricity being a good bit less than gasoline.  So it's a win, win, win.  The consumer wins, Agassi wins, and the planet wins.  I think it's the first truly workable solution to break the world's dependancy on gas.

And if it works other companies will likely start building their own charging station networks, competing with Better Place, driving costs to the consumer lower and lower, while driving battery and vehicle efficiency steadily higher.  Already two countries have signed on to roll out the plan and the cars are going into production.  This is not a pipe dream. It's happening, and I can't wait to buy my first Better Place vehicle.

Plus, the whole system makes "Roll Over" minutes (mileage) really funny.