Better Place’s (”BP”) idea is the dumbest thing ever. It is premised on the assumption that battery technology will not evolve and improve. Battery technology is technology. With time, technology gets better and costs less. Look at processors, LCD TVs, etc. Investment into battery technology has been growing exponentially since the advent of laptops, cellphones, PDAs. Batteries can already get us 100 miles. How much improvement do we need before BP’s “recharging/swapping stations” become redundant? BP plans to have it’s infrastructure set up in Australia by 2012. As per normal delays, that means it will actually be set up by 2014-16. There are no plans for the USA. So, at the earliest, infrastructure would be set up here by 2018. That is a decade away. Where do you think battery technology will be in a decade? It in all likelihood, it will be in a place that makes BP’s charging stations redundant before they even got started. All BP is trying to do is get into the market early to create a electricity network monopoly. When consumers realize that their batteries are good enough so that the network is redundant, BP’s monopoly will disintegrate.