Better Place Runs Out of Juice, Reportedly Plans Bankruptcy

[IDemo]

Better Place’s plan to create a world full of electric vehicles that swap their batteries when they run out of juice is reportedly dead.

According to Fortune, the Israel-based company plans to file for bankruptcy in the coming days, with a source familiar with the situation saying that Better Place couldn’t scale quickly enough, and “The company was not well-served by having things it thought would happen over a decade happen within a year.”

Better Place has been around since 2007 and raised $850 million in funding, but over the last several months, the company has endured a fair amount of turmoil.

Its charismatic founder and CEO, Shai Agassi, was ousted by the board late last year, and his position was filled by Better Place Australia CEO Evan Thornley, who left a few months into the gig.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/05/better-place-bankruptcy-report/

[Eleanors38]

1. I remember seeing on ESPN2, some 20 yrs.ago, the Electric 500,

a race out of Arizona. Compact cars -- notably Honda CRX class -- used off-the-shelf motors & lead-acid batteries to stage a 500 mile round & round. Inevitably, they made pit stops to "refuel" on batteries. They were swapped out en banc in one tray, and replaced the same way thru what would have been the rear portions of the rocker panels. And they were off again.

The pit time? 17 - 21 seconds -- a normal NASCAR pit stop.

This idea should have worked.

[OnlinePoker]

2. No standard for battery packs

I think every car company that has an EV or hybrid has their own design for battery packs. I don't know how accessible these would be to allow a quick swap out. There would also need to be a critical mass of vehicles out there that use batteries to make this work and I don't believe we've reached that point yet. The idea may have more of an opportunity to succeed in the future, but all of the companies would have to develop a standard battery model that would allow an easy change first and I don't see that happening right now.

[Eleanors38]

3. Looks like it. When the company started, I envisioned them being part of

An existing fleet of rental cars, modified to accept standardized batteries/hardware.