This morning the new CEO of Better Place, Evan Thornley, is talking to the Israeli press. I didn’t have the time to attend (I wasn’t invited but I probably could have asked to attend). Shai Agassi has also now stepped down from the company’s board following his removal as CEO last week.
The Israeli press has been full of doom laden reports of the company about to run out of money. I have no inside information on the veracity of this or any of the other reports. I do know that selling their car and service is very difficult when the future of the company is constantly cast in doubt. The product and the price are now market leading in Israel without a doubt. In my opinion the only significant barrier now is belief in the future of the company.
Beyond the uncertainty, I’m still happy with my purchase. I wrote the following on Facebook yesterday:
It’s time for EV drivers to stop being defensive: especially in Israel, with a fully operational network of battery switch stations.
My Electric Car is BETTER than any liquid burning car. Period. It’s not the same, it’s not as good, it’s BETTER.
It drives BETTER, it smells BETTER, the service that comes with it is MUCH BETTER. The price is even BETTER but even if the price was the same as driving a burning car, it would be worth it.
This car is my first choice: this car is just BETTER!
I’ll wait to see what the result of today’s conference is but I’ll continue driving the world electric and hope I can convince fellow pioneers to join me.
A note about service:
I got my own car back yesterday following it’s warning a week ago. It turns out that I could have simply fixed the car by driving to a battery switch station and switching. There was a fault in the particular battery pack I had in my car at the time. Only in a Better Place solution is such a problem a complete non-event for a customer.
Renault kept my car over the holiday in order to perform a minor low priority recall on a pump. Because I had an identical replacement vehicle from Better Place I wasn’t inconvenienced at all. This is the first time in my driving life I’ve had such 5* service that covers all aspects of motoring without any need to deal with third parties
Better Place even dealt with the Renault service centre on my behalf. I chose to go and pick my own car up (purely out of interest and wanting to see Renault’s operation). They offered to deliver the car to me on a loader
