Better Place Distance Dash

  |  
Aug 20, 2012

I’m still in London but yesterday I saw something happen on Twitter that is pretty impressive. Shai Agassi, founder of the electric car service provider Better Place, drove an entire lap of Israel.

He drove 1,150 km or 715 miles in a single day. He left his home on the coast near Tel Aviv. He drove to the border with Lebanon, up to Mount Hermon then all the way south to Eilat and back to his home in the centre of the country.

He started somewhere at home (north Tel Aviv somewhere) with a first tweet at 07:51 (I’m not sure what time zone Twitter is reporting…)

He then switched just north of Haifa (I recognise the sign) time stamped 08:15

At 9:41 he tweeted from the border with Lebanon

Next stop, Mount Hermon, the tallest mountain in Israel  which he reached at noon 12:00

And then the big drive…. all the way to Eilat which he reached at 19:30

He then showed his dashboard. 1,000 km covered and if you look to the left, a full battery

I went to bed, thinking Shai had earned himself a massage and a stay in a 5* Eilat hotel! So imagine my surprise when I see this when I wake up:

Time stamped 00:54. So he travelled 1,150 km or 715 miles in roughly 15 hours. That’s a moving average of 76 kph or 46 mph. All in an electric car just like mine.

No other electric car in the world with any other fast charging technology could do that. Not one. Not even the most expensive in the world.

For 120 years gasoline & liquid fuels have crushed all other forms of transport energy. Yesterday Shai Agassi drove around the whole of Israel in an Electric Car. He had to build the entire infrastructure to do that himself and that is an amazing achievement in four years.

And when I say “by himself” it means he put together an amazing team to help him. Every interaction I’ve had with every employee of Better Place to date has been an example of how to deliver customer service. From every BSS attendant to the people who answer the phones, all have been infused with an enthusiasm and willingness to make the customer happy that is out of the ordinary.

Shai used one or two switch stations that are not open to regular customers but I would guess they’ll be open within a week or two. You won’t have to be the CEO of the company to make this trip in a couple of weeks!

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Brian of London

Brian of London is not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy. Since making aliyah in 2009, Brian has blogged at Israellycool. Brian is an indigenous rights activist fighting for indigenous people who’ve returned to their ancestral homelands and built great things.

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