Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Agassi, Ofer meet IEC execs on electric car bid

Globes reports that Shai Agassi and Idan Ofer, the heads of electric car venture Project Better Place, met a group of Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) executives a few days ago to review the technical feasibility and costs of establishing a network of electric recharging stations for the cars.

Agassi and Ofer asked IEC for a proposal for the supply of electricity to the stations at a reduced group tariff. The price of electricity is a critical factor for calculating the costs and profitability projections for Project Better Place.

The parties discussed a range of technical issues relating to the deployment of the recharging stations, but no conclusions were made. Among other things, Agassi and Ofer asked for a study of locating recharging points at people's homes, where their cars could be recharged overnight. The parties also discussed when during the day car recharging should be carried out.

IEC said that if most recharging is made during the night, where there is surplus production capacity, the electricity rates would be lower. However, overnight recharging will require Project Better Place to reduce the number of vehicle rechargings in real time and speed up development of a battery replacement mechanism.