In Case You Missed It: Tom Friedman Writes About Project Better Place

For those of you who missed the presentation on Israel’s project to create the first infrastructure to support a mass-produced electric car, here’s Tom Friedman writing about it in yesterday’s New York Times:

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

You’d have the start of an energy revolution.

Of course if you’d been at the 16th Street J on July 17th you would have been able to answer Mr. Friedman’s quiz.

Beyond Oil: Learn How Israel Will Be the First Country to Support an Electric Car Infrastructure

Here’s a last minute addition to our July programs.  On Thursday, July 17 at 7:30 pm, we’re partnering with Adas Israel Congregation’s Green Committee, the Center for Israel Studies at American University, DC Minyan, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and Kesher Israel Congregation to present a talk by Michael J. Granoff, Head of Oil Independence Policies for Project Better Place.

Project Better Place is nothing less than a pathway to a commercially viable electric car, and with $200 million in investor funding, the future may be closer than you think. Israel, in cooperation with Renault/Nissan have drawn up a plan to make Israel energy independent within a decade–with the government committing to the tax incentives and infrastructure and Renault/Nissan committed to the mass production of electric cars for sale to John Q. Public (or Yaakov B. Tzibur as the case may be).

While the motivation for a country like Israel to free itself from dependence on Middle Eastern Oil is fairly obvious, the solutions proposed by Project Better Place claim to be scalable to a nation of any size.

Now, perhaps the expense of filling my car at $65 a pop has me seeing oases of oil-free living that are not as close as the mirror of my mind would have them appear. But, given the billions that the petroleum industry is clearing in profits, you would think there might be a billion or two out there to fund something like this? Come to the free event, next Thursday at the Washington DCJCC and find out. In the mean time, enjoy the CGI gasoline-free future in the clip below or visit PBP founder Shai Agassi’s blog The Long Tailpipe.