Better Place

Accelerating the transition to sustainable transportation.

Thursday 29 September 2011, by Joy Tauetsile, May Tang, Sally Situ, Vlad Andrei Tanasescu

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Better Place is a venture-backed American company based in Palo Alto, California that aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a market-based transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles.

We think that the company is addressing two of the most unethical but yet necessary needs that mankind has at this point, we all have gotten used to the comfort of using a car but by using the care we pollute the environment in which we live in.

On the other hand because so far because there has not been any sustainable alternative to the combustion engine the oil companies have managed to grow bigger and bigger and at this point control the prices of oil as they wish.

Also by creating this Better Place is also providing resources for renewable development.

As a small company that wants to compete with the oil giants on a market that at this point does not even exist we think it is a absolute ethical vision.
The values that they envision are altruistic and are a good way to prove to the world that we can conduct green business.

What leads us to trust them is the fact that not only have set a high standard but they also have started to co-opt governments and other businesses that see the future, businessmen that realize the fact that gas is scarce and the scarcer it gets the more expensive it becomes leading to a loss of consumers

One of their future challenges will be expansion, they have already signed contracts with several countries in key locations in order to have starting point and be able to expand from there.

They will face many attacks from the oil companies if they manage to convert more and more people from the traditional engine to the electric one, the oil companies thus losing money.

Illegal replication is a present and future challenge, the designs of the battery, the battery replacement center and everything involved will probably be reproduced illegally, so they need to take that into consideration.

Other companies may want a piece of the action if they become successful
Governments may give priority to domestic brands in order to protect it from extinction.

As concrete improvement they will have to research a more sustainable battery, the charging grid will have to be constantly developed and extended so that consumers will have more freedom of travel, new cars will have to be designed in order for customers to have access to a wide selection of vehicles

We think that the market is in a continuous improvement and so in order for Better Place to be successful they will have to constantly adapt to the market?s needs, and ideally shape the needs that the consumers have

Bibliography

www.betterplace.com
www.wikipedia.org
www.financialtimes.com

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1 Discussion / 1 Message

  • Better Place 5 October 2012 at 10:09 , by Nicolò Locatelli

    When we talk about electric vehicles the first thing that always we think about is production and maintenance costs. Shai Agassi is trying to solve this huge problem.
    A couple of years ago I was interested in buying a electric motorbike and I was surfing on the internet looking for an electric company when I found Better Place. Firstly I started looking on the internet, understanding the goal of this company and secondly I realized the huge potential of this idea.
    Shai Agassi’s idea is very simple but at the same time genius.
    Switching the battery he solves at the same time two huge problems that till now have impeded the develop of this sector:
    1) maintenance costs
    2) pollution of batteries
    I like very much Agassi’s work because he has been able in these years to look always at both aspect of his company developing environmental responsibility and core business at the same time.
    There are a lot of company that are developing electrical stuff ( A123 is the main player) but only BetterPlace had been able to understand at the same time peoples’ needs (the cost of an EVC drop dramatically thanks to this technology) and environmental needs, in my opinion this could be the key of success for Agassi. I have followed all the news about this company since I met it on the internet 3 years ago. I’m very happy that also a very important investor like George Soros have decided to put his personal money in this project.
    In my opinion this is the right way to implement an ethic business, many times in my life I have seen wonderful company, involved in very important ethic projects, but they had thought only to ethical aspects and because of that they failed. Better place is different and I hope that they will success in the future.
    Personally I will try to spend my internship there, because I think that the potential of this project could be huge in the future. I want to implement with them a entry strategy for Europe because I think that European market could be very interesting for them also more than US market (where they are focusing their main efforts at the moment).
    This is the kind of company that makes me dream, they make me hope that the future could be different. I think that cars are the biggest problems of modern society and nobody is really interested in changing this situation, for this reason this company don’t sell only batteries and provide services for their costumers but they also works for us, trying to built a BetterPlace to live.

    If someone wants to deepen his/her knowledge on this topic, I attach some useful links:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8nTAjVaa7Y
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp78rfNkfrY&feature=related

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Location: Palo Alto (United States of America)

Sector: transport

Foundation: 2007

Official website: http://www.betterplace.com

Key figures:

Seeing as how the company plans to launch their product in 2012 they still have not managed to record any revenues.
So far they have opened subsidiaries in Israel, Denmark, Canada, China, Australia and USA (California and Hawaii).
The employee number is limited Shai Agassi the founder has managed to form a very effective team of 280 people that share the same vision.

Nbr. visits: 483

Nbr. inspires: 4

Date added: 29 September 2011