Better Place

[auf deutsch]

You never heard of Better Place? You gotta see it! It was founded in 2007 by an ex SAP manager called Shai Agassi.

What are they doing?

The idea is to put electronically cars, charge and switch stations, as well as an driver service together to reduce the pollution and the customer empowerment. The result is Better Place.

Conclusion

The Idea is great but to be honest, it’s not new! May be the mash up of the ideas. Actually its established in Denmark, Netherland, Japan and some more countries. I hope that this idea will come to Germany, too. On my question Shai said they are some kind of fighting with the German car industry – nothing to add, I really believe that. In my opinion RWE is one of his competitors in Germany (a German Energy Company). They try already to set up a network of charge stations for electronically cars. The question is if all electronically cars can use it (i. e. is there a standard for the power plug?). Better Place has its own system – which makes it uncomfortable to use if you would like to go abroad – like most people does. So my suggestion, open it and do cooperation with RWE and the car industry. What happens if not and nobody else will do something similar in Germany? Germany becomes more dependent on gas! And nobody wants. So it becomes tough in Germany especially for the car industry on the other hand. There are so many competitors with some electronically car models. So please Ms Merkel do something! (Ok, something happens: Check the report of the BMWi about charching-infrastructure and netintegrationof electronical cars, 2010)

Webpage: And Better Place | The Global Provider of EV Networks and Services.

Following some impressions of these great trip

Better Place – very simple in an old gas silo:

First we got an introduction into the company’s history and a short “marketing” video.

On screen you can see Shai Agassi. At this moment we didn’t really expect to see him later.

After that we got the chance to see how one of the main developments works, the battery switch. Simple but efficient.

Afterwards we had the chance to drive one of these electronically cars. And do you know what? It was AWESOME! No noise, no trouble – just like flying. Great!

Following there was an interview round with one of their product manager:

And in the end we got a meeting with Shai Agassi! A funny and personable guy.

Final Presentation for Entrepreneurship in Health Care Innovation

After we finished the Better Place visit we had to present our final ideas for Entrepreneurship in Health Care Innovation. Finally, after some good presented ideas and other topics around health care, there was a final group photo with Steve. Great lecturer!

Great day! Sababalicous