Better Place On Schedule with Network Development

After electric vehicle solutions provider Better Place announced the opening of the world's first battery switch station in Tokyo yesterday, the company's Australian CEO, Evan Thornley, says all is going according to plan as far as the rollout schedule for charging and switch stations goes. More importantly, Better Place sees no obstacle in their path.

“I don’t think there are any fundamental barriers. We are ready for the solution,” Thornley was quoted as saying by GoAuto. “We also don’t see any fundamental regulatory or related barriers."

"We see a lot of areas where regulatory environments were not necessarily written with the contemplation of EVs and EV recharging, so it is probably preferable to have some amendments to those regulatory areas. But we’ve had a very positive response from governments."

As for the economics of an investment into charging and switch stations, Better Place is confident this is the way of the future. Better Place will have most of the network in place in Australia in 2013.

“The economics of today – with today’s battery prices, today’s electricity prices and today’s petrol prices – would make it viable for a significant proportion of vehicles to be cheaper to run as electric rather than petrol,” Thornley added.

As said, Better Place opened this week the world's first battery switch station and also kicked off a demonstration program in Japan. Better Place and Nihon Kotsu launched three switchable-battery electric taxis in Tokyo to prove the viability of the technology.