There are plenty of pundits and market experts explaining why they believe Better Place - Israel's electric car company, failed.
I know the two primary reasons I didn't buy/lease one, but I wouldn't give those as the explanation as to why it failed.
I didn't buy/lease one, because I need an electric minivan, not an electric car, so in terms of the car model, it just didn't meet my needs at all.
The second reason is the pricing model.
One can argue back and forth with Brian of London as to whether there really was a price savings or not (I don't think so, and definitely not one significant enough to convince me to buy one), but as the case proved, locking yourself into someone's electric grid monopoly and very unappealing pricing model (lease, sort of lease, etc. whatever it was) with no alternative options, just seemed like a really bad idea to me.
But that's not really why it failed.
It really failed because of Shimon Peres.
Peres did a great job getting everyone on board in terms of investing money in Better Place, but when it came to following up in the implementation of the idea, he dropped the ball and it failed.
Does our President have an electric car?
Is the President's office car pool full of electric cars?
I don't believe the answer is yes, to either question.
Because like other Shimon Peres schemes, its good for everyone else to suffer through his ideas, but he personally won't be directly affected by it.
Remind you of anything else Peres has promoted?
For that matter, after granting Better Place a monopoly, was there any government agency that chose to use it and go electric? None that I'm aware of.
Nothing would have saved/grown Better Place more than a government contract to supply them with a fleet of electric cars.
Peres was great when it comes to getting money from investors for Better Peace, I mean Place, and getting them a government sanctioned monopoly, but when it came to following up and seeing if there are any real problems which he could have helped fix (such as lobbying the government to actually use it, and not just the citizens)... well, that's far less interesting than meeting with rich investors, isn't it?
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6 comments:
Well done.
Better Place and the others electric cars also suffer form the same problems. Range. As long as they are a short range vehicle they are unappealing. Tesla and Fisker are beautiful vehicles but not practical. Nissan leaf is a cheaper version but again not practical. We are used to unlimited range and no more then a 10 minute stop for fuel. As long as electric cars are captive to these limitations they will fail. As you well point out, this is the perfect vehicle for a municipal government, but that didn't happen here.
Anon, the main idea of BP was to remove the range limitation by having battery-replacement stations set up around the country.
You can only "sell" the first one. If they didn't catch on, because of inappropriate size, lack of range, etc, then they didn't suit the needs of the clients. And at least Perss wasn't guilty of selling them an overpriced white elephant. Bad enough he sold us Oslo.
I don't think that range was an issue, yet size was. They only offered a massive Fluence which is totally inappropriate for arly adopter yuppie urbanites in Tel Aviv. The reason the Fluence was chosen was the size of the replaceable battery had minimal impact on the trunk. In a small car, the battery would essentially mean no back seat.
I CAN'T BELIEVE I am going to defend Shimon Peres, but here goes:
It was NOT Peres' job to sell the cars or anything else for that matter. The blame is solely the fault of Better Place for not doing a better job of selling the cars to... somebody.
We can discuss where Better Place failed. Personally, I think it was because they insisted on changing the world instead of building a smart business. A huge operation like they wanted needs lots and lots of money and you can only get lots of money from 1) government tzedaka; 2) lots and lots of investors or 3) people buying your stuff.
But instead of figuring out how to make a product that everyone would want to buy they tried to con everyone into giving them their money because electric cars are such a great idea.
I personally agree that electric cars are a good idea but there are lots of good ideas out there. How many investors and consumers are willing to put up their money for this good idea? A limited number.
I don't know when these "green" guys will wise up and realize that you can NOT get people to waste their money on your idea forever just because YOU think it is a super idea. The idea always seems sexier to the guy who is getting the money than the guy giving it. Get it?
In the meantime, Peres has screwed his friends out of $900 million. Just like his great Jericho casino idea. Whom the gods wish to destroy, first they make them be friends with Shimon Peres. Be warned.
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