Hawaii unveils plans for Better Place
The Better Place Rogue is an all-electric version of the Nissan Rogue crossover SUV.
(Credit: Better Place)Hawaii has decided to partner with Better Place to bring car battery exchange stations for electric vehicles to the islands, Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle announced Tuesday.
Better Place stations, similar in concept to gas stations, offer drivers with electric vehicles an automated system that swaps out exhausted lithium ion car batteries for fully-charged ones. The swapping system is intended to be convenient for both drivers and local electric companies, since Better Place can recharge the exhausted batteries with excess electricity generated from renewable sources during off-peak electricity hours.
Lingle said the project is an example of Hawaii's efforts to gain independence from foreign oil, and to stimulate its economy through investment in energy technology.
Not surprising due to its geography, Hawaii spends about $7 billion a year on oil imports with its drivers facing some of the toughest prices at the pump in the U.S. The plan to implement Better Place stations coincides with the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI) intended to change that. Signed in January, it sets Hawaii's renewable energy bar at 70 percent clean energy by 2030, as well as encouraging programs that foster local economic growth.
Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of Better Place, was also on hand at the plan unveiling in Hawaii on December 2. According to Agassi, Hawaii is the second state in the U.S., and the fifth place in the world, to adopt the Better Place electric-car infrastructure. Better Place stations have already been implemented in Denmark and Israel, with Australia and California recently announcing intentions to add them.
"Hawaii, with its ready access to renewable energy resources like solar, wind, wave, and geothermal, is the ideal location to serve as a blueprint for the rest of the U.S. in terms of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, growing our renewable energy portfolio and creating an infrastructure that will stabilize our economy," Agassi said in a statement to the press.
Hawaii Electric is also onboard. The state's electric utility signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Better Place which plans to power its public charging and battery-swapping stations with renewable energy resources.
According to the plan, Better Place will pull permits for its stations in 2009, offer electric cars within 18 months, and make both available for the mass-market in Hawaii by 2012.
Better Place has said it's in talks with major automakers and would like to offer swappable batteries for any electric vehicle regardless of which company makes the car. But right now the company's stations only service two electric vehicles: the Renault Megane and the Better Place Rogue, an electric vehicle based on the Nissan Rogue crossover SUV.
Hawaii's plan with Better Place is to install about 20 electric battery-swapping stations across its islands.
(Credit: Better Place)
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
- charging station plug configuration (more important in Europe)
- charging station power requirements (slow charge, quick charge)
- battery swap stations (battery dimensions & power requirements)
- vehicle-to-grid technology
- billing system
- etc.
Once these things are more-or-less agreed upon, any vendor could offer a solution for any of the components, quickly driving the costs down through competition.
First, the idea of using renewable energy specifically for recharging is excellent, and probably the sanest use of the most variable renewables. To tie wind into the grid sounds great, but causes a lot of headaches for distributors as power production fluctuates.
If Better Place's recharging stations are tied to wind power production levels, though, then instead of trying to juggle other generators, Hawaii Electric can just vary BP's consumption. Might take a little longer for their batteries to charge, but it reduces overall instability for the entire grid.
Note that in the longer term this model would work fabulously for hydrogen production, too.
In the meantime, consumers aren't burdened by worries about individual battery failure, or the need to recycle spent batteries. Better Place can do this in bulk far more efficiently, and while the consumer would still pay (via battery lease), the lower overall cost should benefit consumers in the long run.
Relatively isolated places like Hawaii are ideal test-beds for this kind of initiative. I'll be keeping an eye on this.
are you saying you can't have cars in places like hawaii or any coastal region for that matter?
90% of Hawaii's electric power industry generation is from Petroleum.
So what is the advantage again?
First, burning the oil to make electricity to power vehicles will release less CO2 overall.
Second, think of it as a series of steps:
1. Put vehicles on the electric grid.
2. Improve the electricity generation process to non-carbon sources.
If you never do step 1 you will never get to the point where a major source of atmospheric CO2 is removed.
"The state's electric utility signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Better Place which plans to power its public charging and battery-swapping stations with renewable energy resources."
Sure wind and solar aren't the most reliable as a renewable resource, but geothermal and wave power sources are. They are incredibly constant and able to provide a huge amount of power. You use the unreliable sources to charge batteries at swapping stations and use the more reliable power on the grid for the "fueling" stations.
Besides, part of the plan is to make 70% renewable
1. Recharging of batteries can take place primarily at night, when there is excess capacity in the electric grid. Power plants have to be designed to meet peak consumption which occurs during the day (air conditioning, companies, office buildings, etc.). They cannot be turned off at night (it's costly and difficult to shut down a power plant), and therefore most of the energy generated at night is wasted. Electric energy cannot be stored. Conclusion: Charging electric car batteries at night would not increase petroleum consumption, unless the amount of energy used exceeds the excess capacity in the power grid.
2. It will take a long time for the number of electric cars to reach the threshold where recharging significantly affects peak electricity use. By that time, renewable sources should be coming online, if the government is serious about providing incentives alternative energy generation.
We need more States and municipalities- even the Federal Gov't to embrace this green technology even in its less efficient or less convenient stages so that the upward process of evolving the current technology into a better resource can begin to increase at an even faster rate.
How is this supposed to help the environment if they haven't got the majority of their power system off imported oil? I guess... it's good for the electrical car industry in general.... but that's about it.
http://politicalthoughtchallenge.blogspot.com/
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- by bobhopefan December 4, 2008 5:23 PM PST
- While this idea has a chance of workin in relatively small countries and places with limited areas (Israel, Denmark, Hawaii) - it seems totally impractical for larger areas, including California. The general public is naturally more inclined to go with something that's faster, easier or offers them the best options - Better Place is lacking these qualities for large populations in large countries.
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- by willdryden December 5, 2008 7:57 AM PST
- How many one car families do you know? Just take the other car. For every family with two cars, one could be an electric. Forget Better Place and just charge at home except there are no electric cars because of people like you who think they can not be useful.
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(30 Comments)The majority of the people will not want to constantly have to charge their cars or frequently go to a power station to get their battery swapped out. If you drive 30 miles to work in California - that's a 60 mile roundtrip per day, not including the common sidetrips for shopping, etc... I'm not sure what the range is for the two vehicles they make, but if you have to recharge every 2 or 3 days and you can ONLY go to charging station to swap out a battery - that's a hassle - one which most people will not want. Yes, they can can charge their cars at home as well, but not everyone has convenient access to an outlet that will reach the car (if you live in apt. complex or if you need to park on the street or if you don't or can't park in your garage. Also, who wants to have to remember to charge your car every couple of days - and if you forget the night before you're really up a creek in the morning when you have to go to work.
Then the cars themselves are an issue - you need to have a large enough variety for a large proportion of people to consider them - when you have numerous car options that run on gas or "2" that work with Better Place - most people will hesitate at sacrificing a vehicle which may be more ideal for their needs just to get an electric car. Of course, there's also the risk factor - if Better Place doesn't take off, you just spent a lot of money on a car which is almost obsolete (except that you can charge it at home until the battery is no longer holding a charge). Performance and range of the vehicle is also a concern for large places - it will take Better Place many years (<10+ years) and billions of dollars in California *alone* to match the convenience of having gas stations everywhere - and if you want to drive out of state where Better Place doesn't yet have any power stations, you're stuck and can't go on a long drive.
Considering all the positive feedback above, I realize there are people who are going to be defensive about my points, but these are all realistic and practical issues which work against Better Place. They're trying to go from one extreme (totally gas powered car infrastructure) to the opposite (completely electric powered car infrastructure) - it's too big a leap. It can work in smaller areas/countries, if some of the other issues I noted above can be addresses (such as people's desire and sometimes need for variety). But this is a lousy idea for a large area/country and as far as I can tell, a really dumb thing for California to take on.
One possible better approach is to go with hybrids for now and gradually build an electric based infrastructure and wait until alternative technology has matured that can handle power storage better (but this has its own risks - what if the solution in the end is not based on electricity, but something like hydrogen?). The fact is, gas is extremely efficient compared to all other viable options right now and that's why no other alternative has been jumped on and pursued. Doing something just because you want or feel the need to isn't going to fix the issue - just wastes lots of money. If there isn't a good option yet, then it's necessary to continue researching technology until one is developed - that's a much better way to spend the money at this point.