

"The mission is to end oil," he says, "not create a company." - colortone
http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi?currentPage=all

======
earthboundkid
This could really work in Hawaii. Cut a deal with Hertz, Alamo, etc., and you
have an instant user base. Oahu is so small, you could probably get away with
just 20 or so swapping stations. Plus if anyone ever runs out of juice, it's
pretty easy to drive out to them and swap the battery out in the field, since
nothing's ever more than an island's length away.

My one thought is that he shouldn't be making the car and the battery. He
needs to just design the battery stands and whatnot and license the technology
to "real" car companies.

~~~
netcan
Hawaii sounds like a good idea. Mostly because a few rental companies own 100%
of the cars. Be a good experiment.

But if you're trying to test run for the world, a resort island doesn't prove
anything. Israel's just small enough to be feasible. But it's big enough &
'normal' enough to be applicable to most European Countries. It's also got a
big advantage that a large number of cars are leased by employers as part of
salary packages. Similar advantage to the rentals in Hawaii.

~~~
jonas_b
I'm hoping for Japan or South Korea.

~~~
netcan
I think there's a need for "If it worked in ___ it could also work in ___".
Japan & Korea may do that for China. I'm not sure.

Israel may just do it for a lot of Europe. Even though the fact that Israel
has uber high vehicle taxes (I think only Singapore is higher) gives it a huge
advantage equivalent to a big subsidy. But in papers & on politicians desks it
may not be the same thing.

'Tax Break' sounds better then 'Subsidies.' So a good strategy is finding
somewhere with massive taxes.

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berryg
I like the idea. A lot. Agassi has created a vision. An idea that is
apparently appealing to a lot of people. And he has convinced two countries
that are willing to put his ideas to the test. Who knows: this thing just
might work!

Ethanol, Hydrogen, etc. etc. all need new distribution networks. Electricity
is "everywhere". In a country like The Netherlands almost every km of highway
has lamppost along the road. A city has electricity cables running everywhere.
It should be easy to install a lot of those charging stations.

In Europe a lot of cities have high parking fees. What if you would lower the
parking fees for electric cars? By installing charging stations at those
parking spaces the city council would get a percentage of the charging costs
to make up for the "loss" in parking fees.

There are however potentially other problems. If this plan makes electric cars
cheaper or more economical than normal cars people will be using their cars
more. And that is huge problem. Cars take up space. A lot of space. And
because of the high fuel prices people were finally cutting back on their car
use.

~~~
berryg
Portugal has also signed up! The third country. See:
[http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/06/30/af...](http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/06/30/afx5166097.html)

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gills
You know how, sometimes, you read an article and some startup is doing the
thing you thought would be cool and would displace an entire industry? But you
were lazy and didn't write it down and ask for funding?

Doh...

~~~
JabavuAdams
I'm sure his skills, pedigree, connections, and past performance had nothing
to do with his initial reception.

Ideas are cheap.

------
elai
Eww, a cellphone style, lock in walled garden economics, on something so basic
like electricity, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If this style of business
become popular, the common slashdot metaphor of "imagine if you couldn't get
gas because it's a honda gas station", or "only special ford cars can go on
this road" might actually become a reality.

~~~
randomwalker
This has happened many times before.

If you're creating a new market, often the only way to be profitable is to
create lock-in. Before the PC, you had to buy a computer and the peripherals
and the software from a single vendor. Once adoption hits critical mass, it
makes sense to make everything interoperable. With cellphones, the walled
gardens are again just breaking down. And so on.

Currently, no other strategy for moving away from gasoline is even remotely as
promising; I say having to pay for charging is a small price to pay.

~~~
eru
Won't people hack their way out? You'd need to DRM your electricity.

------
stcredzero
Ending oil also needs to address chemical feedstocks.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=xH_JyuL08K4C&dq=methano...](http://books.google.com/books?id=xH_JyuL08K4C&dq=methanol+economy&pg=PP1&ots=rStARuDwrI&sig=LCVCLaEZZkn7d4oN5EC4zWqufhg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result)

------
DaniFong
The article makes me very happy.

There's lots of data here. The cost of battery deprecation is $1050. That's
enormously useful information to me.

I should say that the slow charge is a problem with batteries, but _not_ with
compressed air. :-)

------
steveplace
If anyone has the link to a video of his speech, it would be much appreciated.

Edit: <http://www.betterplace.com/press-room/videos/>

------
jsmcgd
I'd just like to take this opportunity to plug ammonia as an alternative
solution. High energy density. No nasty emissions. No need for new
infrastructure. No need for new cars. We just need to ramp up ammonia
production, which we need to do anyway to meet growing fertilizer requirements
for a hungry growing population.

Any HNers with me?

~~~
pchristensen
If ammonia production is already insufficient for fertilizer requirements,
wouldn't using it as fuel squeeze food production even more?

~~~
jsmcgd
It would and does, which happens to be the situation at the moment and is one
of the reasons why food is becoming more expensive.

I should have stated that I only support the ammonia economy provided the
increase in ammonia production was powered by nuclear or other non carbon
sources.

------
EastSmith
"The mission is to end oil" vs "Driven: Shai Agassi's Audacious Plan to Put
Electric Cars on the Road (wired.com)"

I don't wonder why this thread gets more attention than the earlier same story
here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=280245>

------
netcan
The phone model isn't pretty. Making deals with governments, locking people
into networks. But I suppose at this point, anything that works. But the end
result may be ugly.

------
comatose_kid
The mission should be the other way around - it should be to create a company
that creates, as its byproduct, an 'end' to oil.

------
wheels
Holy blundering errors, Batman:

 _"At 38, Agassi is the youngest invitee. Just after the dotcom boom, SAP, the
world's largest maker of enterprise software, paid $400 million for a small-
business software company he started with his father; now he's SAP's head of
products and widely presumed to be the next CEO."_

He left SAP a year and a half ago after a massive power-struggle on the
executive board where it was clear that he _wouldn't_ be the next CEO. That's
why he founded the _"not"_ company that is the topic of this article. Except,
well, that it's a VC backed company.

~~~
pchristensen
"A few months later, when his boss broke the news that he wouldn't be getting
the top job at SAP anytime soon, Agassi shocked just about everyone in the
tech world by quitting."

~~~
gaius
I wasn't shocked. In fact I'd no idea that it had happened, or even who he
was.

