EclecticLip

Project Better Place has the noble goal of introducing electric auto fleets. They seem to have some momentum behind them: Israel has signed on to be the first market, and Renault-Nissan will manufacture the fleet. The plan is to deploy half a million battery recharging / replacing stations in the country.

There are some market advantages in Israel: the country is small, and most car-owners probably don’t go on multiday road trips — a cultural institution here in North America.
Unfortunately, Israel’s electric grid is powered mostly (83% in 2005) by coal. Which means Project Better Place could wind up creating the world’s first coal-powered auto fleet…!

But it’s not all bad news.

The IEC (Israel Electricity Corporation) has committed to switching half its power generation to natural gas by 2010. Assuming Israel’s power generation profile will then look similar to the US’s (about 60% coal) this study suggests a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) fleet should have lower GHG emissions, beating all categories except gas-electric hybrids. And if they’re able to reduce the carbon intensity of electricity, then PHEV’s will look better and better.

There’s probably a drive in Israel to reduce its dependency on oil, given that much of the world’s oil comes from not-exactly-friendly Arab countries.  Unfortunately, shifting to natural gas probably won’t solve that issue because the world’s biggest natural gas field is shared by Qatar… and Iran.