Project Better Place: Fill 'er up with batteries?

Israel ready to go electric?

Back in October the NYTimes ran a story on Shai Agassi (more), a 39 year old entrepreneur with high tech roots whom had raised $200 million to develop 'gas' stations for electric cars. Instead of gas, lithium-ion batteries will be replaced with fully charged batteries. Thus, charging won't take hours, not even half an hour. Your battery is simply replaced.

Recently, Israel announced a plan to develop such a system of electric car stations by 2011. Agassi's 'Project Better Place' will develop the stations and Renault-Nissan will produce the electric cars.

So, could such a plan scale to the US? First, the electric cars to be used in Israel will only have about 100 mile range, in the US that might not be sufficient. Will Project Better Place create 'recharging stations' that can accept different sized batteries, for example? Thus, standardization seems like a big obstacle. Second, what about liability? Will Project Better Place assume full responsibility for any battery problems?

Still, Project Better Place is an interesting idea, even if just a niche solution.