California announces electric car network partnership

California and Bay Area Officials have announced plans for a $1 billion network of electric car recharging stations for the San Francisco Bay area highways with a goal of greatly expand the number of electric vehicles on the road. A private company – Palo Alto-based “Better Place” along with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed announced the deal, which sets out to install charging stations in homes, businesses, parking lots and government buildings by 2012. The company said it will also build mechanized battery swapping centers where robots will remove and replace the batteries in cars that are compatible with the system. These stations will allow electric car drivers to travel longer distances without recharging.

The initiative would make the Bay Area the first region in the U.S. to create an electric car network.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday supported the deal, which the company hopes to someday take statewide. “This type of public-private partnership is exactly what I envisioned when we created the first-ever low carbon fuel standard and when the state enacted the zero emissions vehicle program,” Schwarzenegger said in statement. “This partnership is proof that by working together, we can achieve our goals of creating a healthier planet while boosting our economy at the same time.”

The company also unveiled a prototype electric Nissan Rogue SUV, the second prototype developed
under Better Place’s partnership with automakers. Better Place has already struck similar deals with Israel, Denmark and Australia to create electric vehicle infrastructure in those countries.

“We put in the infrastructure, and the big carmakers make the electric cars for us,” said Joe Paluska, the company’s head of policy and communications. “This is an opportunity for California to apply its strength in technology and innovation to Michigan’s manufacturing might,” he said. “We now
need a strong national policy set by the new administration to help the U.S. revive its auto industry and it’s economy.” Until now, the knock on most electric vehicles is that they were prohibitively
expensive because the batteries cost $10,000 or more. Paluska said the new prototype vehicles solve that problem — the replaceable batteries in the prototype cars would be owned by the company, not the consumer. Better Place would charge drivers a subscription fee to use its recharging facilities.

As their part of the deal, the mayors vowed to help streamline local permitting and regulations to hasten the installation of hookups in the region, and to provide incentives for local businesses to install charging outlets for employees. “Our goal is to make the Bay Area — and eventually California — the electric-vehicle capital of the world,” Newsom said.