Israel has extended tax incentives to cover zero emission vehicles, and has provided incentives to Project Better Place, which is building a world-first national Electric Recharge Grid Infrastructure to support the cars.
The solution framework comes in response to the Israeli State’s challenge to the auto industry and its supply chain to migrate the country’s transportation infrastructure to renewable sources of energy.
The Renault vehicles are not hybrids – the will run entirely on electricity for all finctions and would provide a similar driving performance to a standard 1.6 litre gas engine.
The alliance with Project Better Place has put forward a business model in which for the first time in the electric vehicle business the ownership of the car is separated from the ownership of the battery.
Consumers will buy and own the car and subscribe to the energy, including the use of a battery on a kilometers-driven basis.
California-based Project Better Place plans to deploy a massive network of battery charging spots. Driving range will no longer be an obstacle, because customers will be able to plug their cars into charging units in any of the 500,000 charging spots in Israel. An on-board computer system will indicate to the driver the remaining power supply and the nearest charging spot.
The Better Place Project is the brain child of former SAP number two Shia Agassi.
The Renault Nissan Alliance said Israel was the perfect market to start a worldwide effort toward electric cars, with 90 per cent of car owners driving less than 70 kilometres per day – and all major urban centres being less than 150kms apart.
Along with Project Better Place, Israel would become the first illustration of the Alliance’s commitment to mass-market zero-emission vehicles all over the world.
The Renault Nissan Alliance is a combination of the French and Japanese car makers. Renault owns 44 per cent of Nissan, while Nissan owns 15 per cent of Renault.
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