Better Place Shutters American, Australian Operations

Better Place is shutting the doors of its Australian and American operations, and will concentrate on its Danish and Israeli divisions. The New York Times reported the news just days after Evan Thornley, head of Better Place Australia, left his post as CEO after just three months on the job. Commeter Autobraz linked to this informative (and politically heavy-handed) article written by an Israeli expatriate over at Daily Kos regarding Better Place and some of the shenanigans that occurred since its inception. Rather than make a poor attempt at summarizing it, I highly recommend reading it for some added context. One example that sticks out is ex-founder Shai Agassi's semi-symbolic ordering of 100,000 Renault Fluence EVs with swappable batteries. Meanwhile, Nissan has sold about 40,000 Leafs globally. The author likes Agassi to Steve Jobs and BP to Apple, noting that without Agassi, the driving force behind BP is gone, and the company will likely follow suit. Arguably, the two also share a similar "reality distortion field" – a phenomenon that may work in consumer electronics, but rarely succeeds in the auto industry.   from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com

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