Document Actions
Bay Area's big-city mayors endorse $1 billion plan for electric cars
San Jose Mercury News
The Bay
Area could become the nation's electric-car capital if an ambitious $1
billion plan announced by a Palo Alto start-up — and endorsed today by
the Bay Area's big-city mayors, including San Jose's Chuck Reed — comes
to fruition. Better Place, the start-up headed by former
high-tech executive Shai Agassi, already has struck deals in Israel,
Denmark and Australia to build battery-charging stations and garages
where drained batteries can be quickly swapped for fully-charged ones.
Today's announcement was the first U.S. deployment of the company's
technology. Based on Better Place's preliminary market research, it
will take about 100,000 charging stations, 50 battery exchange
stations, and a control center to service Bay Area electric car drivers. "We
need to put together a new industry, and it needs to scale very fast,"
said Agassi at a San Francisco City Hall press conference. He was
flanked by Reed as well as Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and San Francisco
Mayor Gavin Newsom.
