Launch
The company was publicly launched, as Project Better Place, by Shai Agassi on October 29, 2007. According to Shai Agassi, the company's founder and CEO at the time, his vision was inspired by a question asked by Klaus Schwab at the 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: "How do you make the world a better place by 2020?" As of January 2011 it had raised $700 million, and about a third was spent in setting up the battery switch stations. Also several countries and states have offered tax breaks.
Better Place announced deployment of electric vehicle networks in Israel, Denmark and Hawaii in 2008 and 2009. The company plans to deploy the infrastructure on a country-by-country basis. The company has said it is in talks with more than 25 additional regions around the world. Australia, Ontario, Oregon, and California also have announced deployment of Better Place electric car networks.
In January 2008, Better Place announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Renault-Nissan to build the world's first Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) model for Israel. Under the agreement, Better Place will build the electric recharge grid, and Renault-Nissan will provide the electric vehicles.
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Famous quotes containing the word launch:
“I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is made ... and at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
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—D.H. (David Herbert)