Electric Israel

Flex fuel cars are not the only alternative to petrol vehicles, another contender is electric. The Israelis are sick of paying for their own destruction and have chosen electric cars to liberate them from oil.

...Announced on Monday, the plans for electric car infrastructure include the construction of 500,000 quick recharge points throughout Israel and tax breaks for electric vehicle buyers. With the tax breaks, electric cars in Israel will be less expensive to purchase than gasoline engine cars. And with 500,000 places to either recharge while you go get dinner, or just have the exhausted battery taken out and replaced with a juiced up one, a lot of consumers will probably be opening their checkbooks to take home an electric car.

Renault, in association with Nissan, will be selling several of its standard vehicles in electric models for the Israeli market. These won't be weak electrics either; according to Bloomberg.com the electric engines will perform similarly to a 1.6 litre gasoline engine. With batteries built by NEC, the expected distance of Renault's electric vehicles is around 124 miles, pretty good considering that Israel is only one-third larger than New Jersey. Plus, Israel's most populous areas, aside from Eilat, are located relatively near each other. This means that, for an average Israeli, recharging an electric car at night after driving only a few miles is a feasible alternative to a gasoline engine vehicle. Renault is confident enough that the average Israeli will buy electric cars that it expects to sell 10,000 to 20,000 electric cars per year starting in 2011. ...

The company will sell the cars like mobile phone with a lease contract for four years after which the cars will be owned by the motorist. Israel is a small country so the limited range of battery cars is less of an issue. I still think alcohol fuels would make better sense in Australia but who am I to know. Thats why I proposed a carrot and stick plan that would all the market to decide. With government support, the Israelis hope to be all electric by 2020. think the main impediment would be if some Islamist decides to nuke Israel of the map.