Better Place, which raised some $850 million to build a charging infrastructure for electric cars, said this week it will liquidate its assets after failing to find more financing. It’s the end to a bold effort to wean the world from oil by innovating with software and business models, rather than with electric vehicle technology itself.
Better Place owns the batteries in its customers’ electric cars, which were made by Renault. For a monthly fee, customers replenish batteries at home from Better Place–installed chargers and access public stations to automatically swap in fresh batteries for depleted ones in a few minutes. An in-car telematics system guides drivers to the closest battery-changing and charge spots.
A technology developed with the University of Delaware has sold power from electric vehicles to the power grid for the first time, the power company NRG Energy Inc said on Friday (26 April).
In a joint statement, the university and NRG said that they began work on the so-called eV2g program in September 2011 to provide a two-way interface between electric vehicles and the power grid, enabling vehicle-owners to sell electricity back to the grid while they are charging their cars.
Desde Inglaterra nos llega una original idea llevada a cabo por empresas como la encargada del transporte de Londres, Source London, la compañía eléctrica SSE y Parkatmyhouse
