Sweet Spot
Agassi said he believes BP is in the best place to start. It offers governments and automakers a system that can help slash CO2 emissions (if the electricity used to charge the batteries comes from renewable resources rather than coal-fired power plants), improve sustainability in the auto industry and help reduce the consumption of petroleum-based fuels.
Automakers, he believes, will benefit because the BP leasing system will help to make EVs profitable by eliminating the need to add the cost of batteries to vehicle prices. That would reduce retail prices and, arguably, make the vehicles more attractive to consumers.
Consumers will benefit, he says, because automakers that build BP-compatible electric vehicles won't have to charge tens of thousands of dollars for batteries. BP's business plan calls for it to purchase, stock and maintain thousands of battery packs for its global network of battery exchange stations.
BP sounded like a pipe dream when it was first pitched a few years ago. And it is still a long way from a sure bet. But Agassi's dream of a "mission-driven" business that can help to improve the environment while making a profit seems to be gaining traction.
The company has deals in Israel and Denmark to provide each country with more than 100,000 EV charging stations and 100 or more battery exchange stations. The battery-exchange stations would service a Renault-Nissan Alliance electric car that will be marketed starting in 2011. (The car, a five-passenger sedan, is being designed by Renault, and will be a different vehicle from the EV that Nissan has said it will launch in the U.S. and Japan next year and globally by 2012.)
In addition, there's the Yokohama demonstration project, which likely will lead to an invitation from the Japanese government to become the rare foreign company allowed — even encouraged — to market its wares domestically. BP also has EV charging and exchange station demonstration or development agreements in the Canadian province of Ontario and the state of Victoria in Australia. It also has agreements in Hawaii and a five-city consortium in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Doubters will doubt, but with the successful showing of BP's prototype battery exchange system, Agassi is marching ahead, secure in his belief that EVs need a charging infrastructure to be successful — and that if he builds it, they will come.