Israel Hadari/Better Place via Getty Images
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We have discussed the Better Place Program before and so far it has taken hold of such areas as Denmark, Israel, Australia, and California. With California on the books for the program, we wonder if the old saying will hold true...As California goes, so goes the rest of the country.
So far we have received news this past Tuesday from Linda Lingle, the Governor of Hawaii, that they plan to work with the folks at Better Place to bring their patented car battery exchange stations for electric vehicles to several of their islands. The project could likely be in full swing as early as 2012.
Hawaii would obviously be one of the most likely candidates to introduce the program in the U.S. considering its current $7 million a year in import fees to bring oil into to each of its islands on a rolling basis. Daily drivers who have been paying some of the worst prices on gas will no doubt be curious about the programs initiation, which they should begin to see being pieced together within the next 18 months as long as everything holds to plan.
In case you have not heard about the program, it is quite simply like the propane program that many supermarkets support here in the United States. After we have grilled a number of steaks, chicken, veggie burgers, or whatever you like to eat and used up a propane tank, we simply bring the empty tank into the store and exchange it for a full one at a minimal cost.
The empty tank is then later filled and then put back out onto the shelf to be traded out to another customer. The Better Place station would be a very similar concept to the propane exchange, in that an electric car driver can pull into a station and trade out their discharged lithium ion battery for a fully charged one.
Better Place removes the responsibility from the driver's shoulders--they no longer have to charge their own batteries or worry about making it through longer trips. Better Place has the ability to recharge the discharged batteries using excess electricity generated from renewable sources during the off-peak electricity hours of the late evening.
Bring Better Place to Your State!
If you are interested in such a program, now is the time to write to your local government and request your state be put on the roster. Better Place would like to extend its offering to all states and electric car manufacturers in the near future.
One day it may be as simple as pulling into your local Better Place station and asking the attendant to exchange your battery with the same ease as it is stating whether you want 85, 87, 91, or 93 octane today. For now the program is limited to two vehicles, the Renault Megane and the Better Place Rogue.
More on lithium ion batteries:
Technology of the Lithium Battery—We've Come a Long Way Baby!
Matsushita to Increase Lithium-ion Battery Production by 300%
Hitachi Maxell Claims Huge Lithium-Ion Battery Breakthrough. Too Good to be True?
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