San Francisco: Electric car city?

Who's bringing the electric car back to life? Mayor Gavin Newsom hopes he can help in San Francisco by partnering with Project Better Place, according to Earth2Tech.

Mayor Gavin Newsom wants San Francisco drivers to zip around town on electric power.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

The venture, founded by the mayor's friend Shai Agassi, aims for all passenger vehicles in Israel to run on batteries rather than gasoline. Drivers would subscribe to cars much like they subscribe to cellular phone plans. The biggest challenge is to create the electric car infrastructure, a network of stations for charging vehicles and replacing batteries.

In Israel last week, Newsom met with CEO Moshe Kaplinsky and volunteered to make the city by the Bay the first U.S. guinea pig for Project Better Place. The city has the nation's largest fleet of plug-in hybrids--a tiny trio of vehicles.

Under the hood of this prototype Renault lies a model battery from Project Better Place.

(Credit: Project Better Place)

On Sunday, Renault showed off a model sedan housing a model Project Better Place battery. The car would get 100 miles per gallon in a city. Nissan is also on board to build compatible cars.

Israeli president Shimon Peres last week endorsed Project Better Place, which launched in March in Denmark, its second country.

Newsom, who mocked the lack of progress toward sustainability in the United States and admired Agassi's efforts in a March interview with CNET, aspires to make San Francisco the nation's "greenest" city.

The mayor had to give up his General Motors EV-1 years ago, but soon will drive a Tesla electric roadster.

This pumpkin-colored Tesla electric car drew onlookers Monday at SF Green, a meet up of clean tech start-ups and investors.

(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET)

[theBike45]

Mayor Newsome is simply pandering to his constituents and trying to be the big hero. He's a fool. He can't do anyhting himself to revive the electric car - that is happening via the Chevy Volt and probably the EEStor capacitors. Anything he does now to avoid those soultions will cost San Fran dearly - there is simply no need for heroics when a solution like the Volt and possibly the EEStor are at hand and will apear long before any braindead scheme like Project Better Place gets started in San Frans. The mayor is a technologically challenged person who has no right to make decisions about a subject of which he displays so little knowledge. Lets get rid of politicians like Newsom who are loose canons out to get reelected by screwing the consumers. Better Place makes no economic nor environmental sense, even in a postage stamp like israel. I can just imagine travellers having to swap batteries 5 ot 6 times a day and maintain 5 reserve copies of those very expensive battery packs to support their travel. It is the ultimate boondoggle. Fortunately, it will never be built. And having Better place in a tiny place like San Fran is absurd - don't your people ever want to leave the county? Or the state? How are they going to do that?

[djacobsonw]

I think it is GREAT that Mayor Newsom and Richard Daley in Chicago are so supportive of green technology and want CHANGE. The comment above reeks of jealousy.

[djacobsonw]

I think it is GREAT that Mayor Newsom and Richard Daley in Chicago are so supportive of green technology and want CHANGE. The comment above reeks of jealousy.

[rlugbill]

TheBike45 is likely an oil industry lobbyist. They have hired someone who searches the net every day for any article about electric cars and especially Project Better Place and then he writes these kind of rants saying what a bad idea it is, etc. They lie and use fake names and try to come across with some "facts", but they still want to sound authentic. I have seen similar posts on other articles- they are usually the first ones to post. This is their job to look for articles like this, then cut and paste their standard diatribes on the comments.

It is interesting because this is something the oil and gas industry really fears. This Project Better Place must be on to something or else the oil and gas industry wouldn't be so afraid of it.