As debate rages in Australia over how best to reduce carbon emissions, one big question is - what to do about our addiction to gas guzzling cars? Well, an Israeli man thinks he has the solution. Dateline's David Brill travelled to Tel Aviv to meet the entrepreneur behind an ambitious global plan that he says will drive the electric car further.
REPORTER: David Brill
SHAI AGASSI, BETTER PLACE: So, what we're doing here in Israel, no one is doing in the US and I can tell you that this car is actually more convenient and more affordable than a gasoline car today.
Shai Agassi is the man behind a bold new plan to end the world's dependence on oil.
REPORTER: You know, you're putting in nearly $1billion into this, you and your people - it's a lot of money?
SHAI AGASSI: That's nothing compared to what they're putting into the ground everyday to dig a hole.
REPORTER: That’s all it takes, eh?
SHAI AGASSI: That's the new gas station, it comes to you.
REPORTER: No petrol going through this hose here.
Electric cars have long been considered too expensive and too inconvenient for most people, seen more as a toy for hobbyists and wealthy greenies.
REPORTER: And what's that, your swipe card?
SHAI AGASSI: My swipe card ID.
Shai intends to change all that.
SHAI AGASSI: We have designed it so that it’s blocked until you swipe your card, it opens up, you plug it in and that’s it.
Shai was once an executive at a leading software company in Silicon Valley. He never intended to lead an automotive revolution.
SHAI AGASSI: This happened very late in my life. I didn't have any aspirations to end oil when I was young. I actually responded to a challenge first by Claus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum, to do something to make the world a better place. For me that was more of a hypothetical thinking, ended up in a white paper.
His idea was to run a country without oil by igniting the mainstream adoption of electric cars.
SHAI AGASSI: Then the President of this country, Shimon Peres, challenged me to turn the paper into a reality. He called me up after a couple of days, come to my office, and started a cycle of about two weeks of meetings, with everybody in government and business in Israel and at the end of the two weeks we had the milestones, the boundary conditions we had to meet, find a car company, find $200 million dollars, we'll let you do this in Israel.
Fast forward six years and his vision is on the verge of becoming reality.
REPORTER: Where are we now?
SHAI AGASSI: We're at the Better Place centre in Tel Aviv.
REPORTER: And what happens here?
SHAI AGASSI: This is where people actually come to experience driving. You can actually see these guys - they're walking in right now.
TOUR GUIDE: Better Place centre is the first centre in the whole world that presents a complete solution for electric transportation.
The visitor's centre is built on the site of an old oil depot, and the irony is intentional.
TOUR GUIDE: In a symbolic way today we spread a new concept to the world coming straight from here.
Over 75,000 people have toured the facilities since it opened a year ago. They've all come to see Shai's solution to what's been the electric car's biggest problem.
REPORTER: What about the range anxiety people have, of worrying that the battery might go flat?
SHAI AGASSI: Well, I think if you have a fixed battery electric car, you should be worried. You're tethered to your home.
REPORTER: So this is a car which comes with a battery.
SHAI AGASSI: We actually address that with a switchable battery electric car.
It might not look like much but this is the heart of Agassi's solution.
SHAI AGASSI: We brought in a disruptive thought that you're not bound to your battery, you're not bound to the range of that battery. You can exchange the battery and keep going.
TOUR GUIDE: With your card you will be recognised with your car. It will take you to the spot where the battery will be switched and your car will be washed.
Instead of spending hours recharging, customers will drive into a switch station and swap the depleted battery for a fully-charged one.
TOUR GUIDE: We use this switch station if you go a long distance - If you want to go very far.
It takes less time than it takes to refuel a petrol car thanks to a mechanism adapted from the one that holds the bombs in place on F-16 jets. By the end of the year they hope to have over 40 switch stations across the country.
SHAI AGASSI: The switchable battery electric car allows you to use all the batteries that are on the road. Any location you are in has a GPS which tells you how far you are from your next location and from the next switch station, it gets away from the anxiety, you actually, you're always aware of where you are and whether you'll make it to the next stop. It becomes almost second nature not to think about it.
At the Frankfurt Motor Show two years ago, Renault agreed to mass-produce an electric vehicle with a switchable battery. They committed to making 100,000 cars named the Fluence- ZE.
SHAI AGASSI: It's the first mega-deal for electric cars in history. There has not been a car since the Ford Model T that has been sold at 100,000 volume, driving on anything other than gasoline. If you'll look back at history, today was the beginning of the electric era and potentially the end of the oil era.
Sometimes people have to remind you to aim high. Most of us are afraid of aiming high for fear of failure and our biggest failure is that we aim too low.
He's certainly aiming high with plans to open his networks of Charge Spots and Switching Stations across the globe. The roll-out has already begun in Denmark, Hawaii, Japan, and Canada and will soon becoming to Australia.
SHAI AGASSI: This is the Network Operating Centre. This is the hub, the backbone if you want of running a network around a country. Somebody needs to manage that the current is coming in, nobody ran over a spot, there are no emergencies, and so you need to run it as a utility. That's what we've built here.
REPORTER: But this is very small!
SHAI AGASSI: You know, from this centre we can actually manage any network in any country. Guys, can you put a map on the screen, Israel, Denmark, any of the countries that are running?
Thanks to Shai's computing background, the system will be able to balance the demand across the power grid as well as micro-manage its customer's needs.
SHAI AGASSI: When you come in it knows that you're a certain distance from home, how much battery do you need, what time it is based on that, are you at work, what's the probability you'll need to drive it in the next few hours, all that information is used by the computer inside the car to give us a priority rating on your need for charge right now.
TOUR GUIDE: To get to 100% battery capacity we need to charge for 1hour and 42 minutes.
Turning Shai's dreams into a global reality is a massive undertaking. He's been pressuring world leaders for tax breaks for pollution-free cars. Shai also had to drum up the hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. But nowadays potential investors come to him.
SHAI AGASSI: I have a better proposition for you. If you can do that, you can do my proposition. Wow!
It wasn't long before Shai and these German bankers wanted to talk business privately.
SHAI AGASSI: We need to end this.
REPORTER: OK, thank you gentlemen.
So I went to speak with Better Place's first and largest investor. Idan Ofer is an oil tycoon who's already put $220 million into Shai's company.
REPORTER: What convinced you this was a good investment?
IDAN OFER, PRINCIPAL INVESTOR: The raw numbers made sense, you know, using electricity for driving a car, the cost differential is so large that it made sense immediately.
REPORTER: If Better Place doesn't succeed, a lot of money might do down the drain?
IDAN OFER: I don't consider that as a possibility. First of all, it's already succeeded. Four years ago Shai Agassi said I'm going to do an electric car that changes batteries, that can drive all over the country and we will have a system that controls the entire system and the demand on the grid. So everything he said he would do, he did.
REPORTER: He obviously has big hopes for its future.
IDAN OFER: I envision that Better Place will be a very significant company in the world - a name that everybody will recognise, like Apple today. It will be a brand that will be well recognised by everybody on this planet.
DR AMIT MOR, ECO ENERGY: In every investment there is a risk.
Dr Amit Mor is an energy economist and financial analyst. He's not entirely convinced battery switching will take off.
DR AMIT MOR: Here we have a technology, very ambitious entrepreneurs, who are putting their money in gambling on new technology.
REPORTER: Gambling on new technology?
DR AMIT MOR: Gambling on the penetration of new technology.
But for Amit Mor, the biggest concern is environmental. Where is the electricity to charge these batteries going to come from?
DR AMIT MOR: If in Australia and other countries will produce all the electricity needed to charge batteries by more coal so we are going to harm the environment rather than having a clean transportation.
However, just last week Better Place committed to using 100% clean energy for its Australian network. It's the largest renewable energy deal Australia has ever seen.
EVAN THORNLEY, BETTER PLACE AUSTRALIA: An energy supply contract between Better Place and ActewAGL, a long term energy supply contract solely for zero emissions renewable electricity.
This is the man leading the charge down under, former Labor MP Evan Thornley.
EVAN THORNLEY: This is going to happen quickly. By the end of 2013 more than half Australia's drivers will be able to drive wherever they want, whenever they want, in an electric car.
REPORTER: Why have you got an interest in Australia?
SHAI AGASSI: Well, we did Israel and Denmark and everybody started claiming we can only do small countries and we were focused on transportation islands that are tiny. So we figured out if we did a big island likeAustralia then we would be proving the point that this can work anywhere.
Today Shai's back at the Visitor's Centre persuading a group of journalists from around the world.
SHAI AGASSI: Within less than this decade the number one selling car in the world will be an electric car, in every market, in every country, around the world. The number of electric cars sold in that market in that year will be higher than all gasoline cars put together.
Some of the reporters are sceptical but Shai is determined to win them over.
SHAI AGASSI: Ten years ago know what was the number one music player in the world? You can't remember it but it was called Walkmen, made by Sony – the same company that makes this camera. If I told you back then, 10 years ago in 2001, that within a decade there won't be something called Walkmen, you said "nah, it's impossible", who would take their place? There's no other company in the world that will take their place? If I told you that the company that will take their place has never made a music player, you'd say "nah, these things don't happen, definitely not that fast".
WOMAN: It was very impressive, it was smooth, it was quiet, it felt almost like we were floating on air.
REPORTER: What did you think?
MAN: Fantastic!
REPORTER: Would you buy one?
MAN: In a heartbeat. So what I need, I need a changing station halfway between Boston and Vermont, all-wheel drive and I'm there.
REPORTER: Do you think gas cars are on the way out?
MAN: I certainly hope so.Too many bad things with gas cars.
REPORTER: Do you think GM and Ford will eventually change?
MAN: I hope so, I certainly hope so. If they don't maybe no one will buy their cars.
Ultimately, it’s ordinary people like these visitors that will determine the fate of Shai’s dream.
SHAI AGASSI: It’s the biggest financial opportunity that the world has ever seen, right. We are seeing 10 trillion dollars in shift every year, happening in the span of one decade. It has never happened before. This is the internet with another zero.
Reporter/Camera
DAVID BRILL
Producer
DONALD CAMERON
Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
DAVID POTTS
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN
5th June 2011
REPORTER: David Brill
SHAI AGASSI, BETTER PLACE: So, what we're doing here in Israel, no one is doing in the US and I can tell you that this car is actually more convenient and more affordable than a gasoline car today.
Shai Agassi is the man behind a bold new plan to end the world's dependence on oil.
REPORTER: You know, you're putting in nearly $1billion into this, you and your people - it's a lot of money?
SHAI AGASSI: That's nothing compared to what they're putting into the ground everyday to dig a hole.
REPORTER: That’s all it takes, eh?
SHAI AGASSI: That's the new gas station, it comes to you.
REPORTER: No petrol going through this hose here.
Electric cars have long been considered too expensive and too inconvenient for most people, seen more as a toy for hobbyists and wealthy greenies.
REPORTER: And what's that, your swipe card?
SHAI AGASSI: My swipe card ID.
Shai intends to change all that.
SHAI AGASSI: We have designed it so that it’s blocked until you swipe your card, it opens up, you plug it in and that’s it.
Shai was once an executive at a leading software company in Silicon Valley. He never intended to lead an automotive revolution.
SHAI AGASSI: This happened very late in my life. I didn't have any aspirations to end oil when I was young. I actually responded to a challenge first by Claus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum, to do something to make the world a better place. For me that was more of a hypothetical thinking, ended up in a white paper.
His idea was to run a country without oil by igniting the mainstream adoption of electric cars.
SHAI AGASSI: Then the President of this country, Shimon Peres, challenged me to turn the paper into a reality. He called me up after a couple of days, come to my office, and started a cycle of about two weeks of meetings, with everybody in government and business in Israel and at the end of the two weeks we had the milestones, the boundary conditions we had to meet, find a car company, find $200 million dollars, we'll let you do this in Israel.
Fast forward six years and his vision is on the verge of becoming reality.
REPORTER: Where are we now?
SHAI AGASSI: We're at the Better Place centre in Tel Aviv.
REPORTER: And what happens here?
SHAI AGASSI: This is where people actually come to experience driving. You can actually see these guys - they're walking in right now.
TOUR GUIDE: Better Place centre is the first centre in the whole world that presents a complete solution for electric transportation.
The visitor's centre is built on the site of an old oil depot, and the irony is intentional.
TOUR GUIDE: In a symbolic way today we spread a new concept to the world coming straight from here.
Over 75,000 people have toured the facilities since it opened a year ago. They've all come to see Shai's solution to what's been the electric car's biggest problem.
REPORTER: What about the range anxiety people have, of worrying that the battery might go flat?
SHAI AGASSI: Well, I think if you have a fixed battery electric car, you should be worried. You're tethered to your home.
REPORTER: So this is a car which comes with a battery.
SHAI AGASSI: We actually address that with a switchable battery electric car.
It might not look like much but this is the heart of Agassi's solution.
SHAI AGASSI: We brought in a disruptive thought that you're not bound to your battery, you're not bound to the range of that battery. You can exchange the battery and keep going.
TOUR GUIDE: With your card you will be recognised with your car. It will take you to the spot where the battery will be switched and your car will be washed.
Instead of spending hours recharging, customers will drive into a switch station and swap the depleted battery for a fully-charged one.
TOUR GUIDE: We use this switch station if you go a long distance - If you want to go very far.
It takes less time than it takes to refuel a petrol car thanks to a mechanism adapted from the one that holds the bombs in place on F-16 jets. By the end of the year they hope to have over 40 switch stations across the country.
SHAI AGASSI: The switchable battery electric car allows you to use all the batteries that are on the road. Any location you are in has a GPS which tells you how far you are from your next location and from the next switch station, it gets away from the anxiety, you actually, you're always aware of where you are and whether you'll make it to the next stop. It becomes almost second nature not to think about it.
At the Frankfurt Motor Show two years ago, Renault agreed to mass-produce an electric vehicle with a switchable battery. They committed to making 100,000 cars named the Fluence- ZE.
SHAI AGASSI: It's the first mega-deal for electric cars in history. There has not been a car since the Ford Model T that has been sold at 100,000 volume, driving on anything other than gasoline. If you'll look back at history, today was the beginning of the electric era and potentially the end of the oil era.
Sometimes people have to remind you to aim high. Most of us are afraid of aiming high for fear of failure and our biggest failure is that we aim too low.
He's certainly aiming high with plans to open his networks of Charge Spots and Switching Stations across the globe. The roll-out has already begun in Denmark, Hawaii, Japan, and Canada and will soon becoming to Australia.
SHAI AGASSI: This is the Network Operating Centre. This is the hub, the backbone if you want of running a network around a country. Somebody needs to manage that the current is coming in, nobody ran over a spot, there are no emergencies, and so you need to run it as a utility. That's what we've built here.
REPORTER: But this is very small!
SHAI AGASSI: You know, from this centre we can actually manage any network in any country. Guys, can you put a map on the screen, Israel, Denmark, any of the countries that are running?
Thanks to Shai's computing background, the system will be able to balance the demand across the power grid as well as micro-manage its customer's needs.
SHAI AGASSI: When you come in it knows that you're a certain distance from home, how much battery do you need, what time it is based on that, are you at work, what's the probability you'll need to drive it in the next few hours, all that information is used by the computer inside the car to give us a priority rating on your need for charge right now.
TOUR GUIDE: To get to 100% battery capacity we need to charge for 1hour and 42 minutes.
Turning Shai's dreams into a global reality is a massive undertaking. He's been pressuring world leaders for tax breaks for pollution-free cars. Shai also had to drum up the hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. But nowadays potential investors come to him.
SHAI AGASSI: I have a better proposition for you. If you can do that, you can do my proposition. Wow!
It wasn't long before Shai and these German bankers wanted to talk business privately.
SHAI AGASSI: We need to end this.
REPORTER: OK, thank you gentlemen.
So I went to speak with Better Place's first and largest investor. Idan Ofer is an oil tycoon who's already put $220 million into Shai's company.
REPORTER: What convinced you this was a good investment?
IDAN OFER, PRINCIPAL INVESTOR: The raw numbers made sense, you know, using electricity for driving a car, the cost differential is so large that it made sense immediately.
REPORTER: If Better Place doesn't succeed, a lot of money might do down the drain?
IDAN OFER: I don't consider that as a possibility. First of all, it's already succeeded. Four years ago Shai Agassi said I'm going to do an electric car that changes batteries, that can drive all over the country and we will have a system that controls the entire system and the demand on the grid. So everything he said he would do, he did.
REPORTER: He obviously has big hopes for its future.
IDAN OFER: I envision that Better Place will be a very significant company in the world - a name that everybody will recognise, like Apple today. It will be a brand that will be well recognised by everybody on this planet.
DR AMIT MOR, ECO ENERGY: In every investment there is a risk.
Dr Amit Mor is an energy economist and financial analyst. He's not entirely convinced battery switching will take off.
DR AMIT MOR: Here we have a technology, very ambitious entrepreneurs, who are putting their money in gambling on new technology.
REPORTER: Gambling on new technology?
DR AMIT MOR: Gambling on the penetration of new technology.
But for Amit Mor, the biggest concern is environmental. Where is the electricity to charge these batteries going to come from?
DR AMIT MOR: If in Australia and other countries will produce all the electricity needed to charge batteries by more coal so we are going to harm the environment rather than having a clean transportation.
However, just last week Better Place committed to using 100% clean energy for its Australian network. It's the largest renewable energy deal Australia has ever seen.
EVAN THORNLEY, BETTER PLACE AUSTRALIA: An energy supply contract between Better Place and ActewAGL, a long term energy supply contract solely for zero emissions renewable electricity.
This is the man leading the charge down under, former Labor MP Evan Thornley.
EVAN THORNLEY: This is going to happen quickly. By the end of 2013 more than half Australia's drivers will be able to drive wherever they want, whenever they want, in an electric car.
REPORTER: Why have you got an interest in Australia?
SHAI AGASSI: Well, we did Israel and Denmark and everybody started claiming we can only do small countries and we were focused on transportation islands that are tiny. So we figured out if we did a big island likeAustralia then we would be proving the point that this can work anywhere.
Today Shai's back at the Visitor's Centre persuading a group of journalists from around the world.
SHAI AGASSI: Within less than this decade the number one selling car in the world will be an electric car, in every market, in every country, around the world. The number of electric cars sold in that market in that year will be higher than all gasoline cars put together.
Some of the reporters are sceptical but Shai is determined to win them over.
SHAI AGASSI: Ten years ago know what was the number one music player in the world? You can't remember it but it was called Walkmen, made by Sony – the same company that makes this camera. If I told you back then, 10 years ago in 2001, that within a decade there won't be something called Walkmen, you said "nah, it's impossible", who would take their place? There's no other company in the world that will take their place? If I told you that the company that will take their place has never made a music player, you'd say "nah, these things don't happen, definitely not that fast".
WOMAN: It was very impressive, it was smooth, it was quiet, it felt almost like we were floating on air.
REPORTER: What did you think?
MAN: Fantastic!
REPORTER: Would you buy one?
MAN: In a heartbeat. So what I need, I need a changing station halfway between Boston and Vermont, all-wheel drive and I'm there.
REPORTER: Do you think gas cars are on the way out?
MAN: I certainly hope so.Too many bad things with gas cars.
REPORTER: Do you think GM and Ford will eventually change?
MAN: I hope so, I certainly hope so. If they don't maybe no one will buy their cars.
Ultimately, it’s ordinary people like these visitors that will determine the fate of Shai’s dream.
SHAI AGASSI: It’s the biggest financial opportunity that the world has ever seen, right. We are seeing 10 trillion dollars in shift every year, happening in the span of one decade. It has never happened before. This is the internet with another zero.
Reporter/Camera
DAVID BRILL
Producer
DONALD CAMERON
Editors
MICAH MCGOWN
DAVID POTTS
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN
5th June 2011