Energy Exchange

EDF Energy Innovation Series Feature #11: Battery Switch Model For Electric Vehicles From Better Place

By Jim Marston / Published: September 13, 2012

Throughout 2012, EDF’s Energy Innovation Series will highlight around 20 innovations across a broad range of energy categories, including smart grid and renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency financing, and progressive utilities, to name a few. This series will demonstrate that cost-effective, clean energy solutions are available now and imperative to lowering our dependence on fossil fuels.

For more information on this featured innovation, please view this video on Better Place’s battery switch model for electric vehicles.

When it comes to refueling gas-powered cars, drivers around the world have about 100 years of practice:  when you run low on fuel, you look for a gas station.  With electric vehicles (EVs) beginning to enter the market, auto manufacturers, grid operators and customers are searching for ways to ease the transition from gas to electricity.

Better Place, a venture-backed company founded in Silicon Valley, is building charging stations in several countries to serve EV customers, and has designed an innovative approach that may well become the “gas station” of the future.  Rather than refill your battery, Better Place’s automated service stations swap it out.

Better Place’s battery switch stations – which could be described as a mixture of a drive-through car wash and a Jiffy Lube service station – can extract and replace an electric car’s battery in a matter of minutes, without requiring the driver to get out of the car.  To complement the switch stations, Better Place also builds a network of standard charging stations to regularly “top off” the battery when the car is parked.

Source: Better Place

“The switching concept makes sense for several reasons,” said John Proctor, Director of Global communications at Better Place.  “Battery switch enables us to address the relatively high cost and limited driving range of EVs.  Better Place buys the battery, removing that burden and worry for drivers, and enables them to quickly switch a battery for a fully charged one to overcome concerns about EVs having enough charge for longer trips.”

Some plug-in models, like the Chevy Volt, have gas powered range extenders that give the car the per-charge range of most gas-powered cars.  But many models are powered purely by electricity.  Enabling those cars to compete with comparable gas-powered models on cost and convenience is the aim of Better Place around the globe. Read More »

Also posted in California, Energy Innovation, Grid Modernization / Tagged | Read 2 Responses

General Motors Reposts EDF, Revokes The Heartland Institute

By Marita Mirzatuny / Published: April 9, 2012

(Source: www.inhabitat.com)

Did EDF’s own Jamie Fine and Colin Meehan have a little influence on General Motors (GM)? Perhaps? Just a few days after GM reposted on their website a blog written by Jamie and Colin on the EDF Energy Exchange explaining the Chevy Volt’s brief production suspension and emphasizing it is not a reason to worry about the future of electric vehicles (EVs), GM decides to change course on climate change. Whereas once they were a denier by proxy, they have now seen the light. On Friday, GM announced they are pulling funding from the climate-denial group the Heartland Institute, an industry front group with contributors like Charles Koch and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

This announcement came after GM’s CEO Dan Akerson gave a speech last month stating that they are operating under the assumption that climate change is happening. This new messaging for GM is now consistent with their advances in alternative auto technologies such as the Volt. It would be difficult for many consumers to choose the Volt while wondering why GM takes those dollars – $45,000 over the last 3 years including 2012 – and funds active climate deniers like the Heartland Institute.

As we told you a few weeks ago, the recent pause in production of the Volt is not a reason to worry. Despite not reaching their rather optimistic sales projections, the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are actually beating the sales history of their hybrid cousins. When the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight were offered as the first commercially available hybrids in 2000, only 9,350 cars were sold. The Prius is now among the best selling cars in the U.S. with over 2 million vehicles on the road. Meanwhile just last Friday, GM announced that record Volt sales in March are reportedly leading them to consider ramping up production. Change takes time and if the Volt is already outpacing its hybrid competitors, we can potentially expect millions of Volts on the road in the next decade. But you wouldn’t believe that if you listened to the naysayers.

Maybe after being on the receiving end of faux alarmists – who are all too excited to write the obituary for “Government Motors” and a fossil free future – GM is rethinking its support for groups that ignore the truth and distort facts just the same.

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