Australians may have an electric car in a few years and recharge it at special plug-in points at home, the office or shopping centres. Energy pusher AGL and finance group Macquarie Capital signed with international group Better Place to provide infrastructure to support the project.
Macquarie says it will raise $1 billion to build an electric-vehicle network in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and AGL will power it with “renewable energy”. (Presumably it will link into the same coal-powered grid as everyone else, but will seek to offset this with investments in wind or solar energy).
American entrepreneur Shai Agassi designed the infrastructure. He predicts that by 2012 the three capitals will each have a network of between 200,000 and 250,000 charge stations and some 150 switch stations, where electric batteries can be automatically replaced.
Renault-Nissan is manufacturing an electric car. Agassi hopes Australian manufacturers will also build them. Big question: are Australian drivers likely to be interested?
