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Project Better Place

U.S.-Listed Companies Lead Israel's Plug-in Charge

By Sam Hopkins
Thursday, February 26th, 2009

We may not be able to buy Project Better Place stock...

But a slew of publicly traded companies are playing an integral role in the world's most ambitious electric vehicle plan.

In fact, corporate campuses and employee homes at 19 of Israel's top companies will become testing grounds for advanced EV infrastructure.

And from these Middle Eastern hubs, multinational companies can spread and adapt their EV strategies around the world.

For instance, charging stations will be installed at the headquarters of Teva Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:TEVA), the world's top generic drug maker.

What's key here is that Teva also has offices in Mexico, Singapore, Brazil, Kenya, and dozens of other countries. And in all of those places, Teva's corporate strategy could mean spreading Better Place's EV infrastructure.

In 2009, Project Better Place is being propagated through the business world with the same sort of seeding strategy that Better Place CEO Shai Agassi first took to governments from Israel to Australia to Hawaii.

Among the other U.S.-listed partners for Better Place in Israel are Partner Communications (NASDAQ:PTNR), Orbotech Ltd. (NASDAQ:ORBK) and the local divisions of Nike and employment services giant Manpower (NYSE:MAN).

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Car-Sharing and Electric Vehicles—Powerful Twin Trends

Corporate car sharing is an accelerating trend by itself, and EV plug-in stations make perfect sense as a twin technology. Pay-per-use services like Zipcar are becoming more and more ubiquitous, and traditional car rental companies like Hertz now moving into that market. Hertz spokeswoman Paula Rivera told the Boston Globe this week that car sharing is a "$1 billion market with potential to grow."

Shai Agassi put it this way:

"We are today seeing the certification that there is real market demand for electric cars that will use Better Place's grid. We expect demand to grow as Israeli companies join in the vision, as well as in other countries, which together represent a potential global market of 50 million cars. We see today the tip of the iceberg of global demand."

What Agassi didn't say is that we are at a time where demand is supercharged by policy around the world.

Israel wants to end its use of foreign oil by 2020. The Obama Administration wants 1 million plug-in cars on the road by 2015. The Danish government, one of Project Better Place's early partners, has brought in IBM, Siemens, and national energy company DONG to make 10% of Danish cars plug-ins within the next decade.

Bringing car-sharing and EV infrastructure together means cars with higher emissions will increasingly be taken off the road, increasing the proportion of electric vehicles as international research projects and corporate EV fleets advance.

We're bullish on Project Better Place, but until we can buy stock in that one, we'll keep an eye out for more companies like Teva that will benefit from growing EV fleets and Better Place's ever-growing resources and research.

There are also other companies around the world making high-efficiency vehicle batteries. Though they may be seen as competitors to Better Place once it goes public, a rising tide lifts all ships.

Green Chip International subscribers are already riding the wave.

To learn more about GCI and our top EV battery play, follow this link: http://www.angelnexus.com/o/web/11068

Regards,

sig

Sam Hopkins


Editor's Note: From solar and wind to geothermal and biofuels, Green Chip readers want to know which renewable energy resource will take over where fossil fuels leave off. The answer is...all of the above!

There is no one single solution to today's energy crisis. However, the combination of all viable renewable energy resources, coupled with energy efficiency, conservation and smart grid development will not only lead us to energy independence and a cleaner, more sustainable energy infrastructure — but also to what will soon prove to be the greatest investment opportunity of the 21st Century.







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Comments:

Comment by Richard Bryant on 2009-02-26
Everyone is going nuts over the prospect of rechargable electric vehicles. That is fine, but the battery raw material components are NOT abundant and are localized in parts of the world that are outside of US territory. Lets spend some concentrated effort on the compressed-air powered vehicle. Potential for superior travel distance between re-charge and every residential garage can easily have a re-charging compressor. Also no dead batteries to dispose of when they die - as they will!
Comment by Joanne Ivancic on 2009-03-04
I couldn't agree more about the problems with batteries--not only the hazardous materials and work of manufacture, but the disposal problems. Add to that the threats of brown-outs already to places in Maryland and the need to destroy our historic and scenic views with more power transmission lines.... Besides, in the US, most of our electricity comes from coal--NOT GREEN! And the nuclear industry is using the hype of electric cars to argue for building new plants and expanding existing ones. NOT GREEN. Let's put investment into truly advanced biofuels; not just cellulosic ethanol, but "drop-in" biogasoline and bio jet fuel. More efficient, more flexible, and truly sustainable, renewable and GREEN.
Comment by Inventor on 2009-05-17
dont expect you air cylinders to die they just explode in your car if its' hit