Now it would appear that even Carlos Ghosn, has abandoned the "Better Place" business model. No new Renault or Nissan models will be produced incorporating " Better Place" battery swapping features.
Having lost first the founding CEO, Shai Aggassi and then the non-politician CEO, Even Thornley, Better Place have announced that the company will only operate in Israel and possibly Denmark as retailers of charging posts.
Better Place has squandered nearly $800 million in capital,and is servicing less than 800 cars in Israel with it's absurd battery swapping scheme.
As I predicted 4 years ago, Better Place was always based on a totally impractical, unworkable, and bizarre concept. Better Place made countless wild and completely false statements. Employee behaved more like cult devotees than employees of a commercial enterprise. Better Place had all the hall-marks of a scam. (In the end, it may prove to have been more of a mass delusion, rather than a deliberate scam).
As Better Place staggers toward bankruptcy, it's just one more instance of how the over-enthusiasm for 'green' projects, in 2007-2010, led to otherwise astute business people suspending all reality,and common-sense, in the rush to back such projects.
