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Let me make a bold prediction – Israel will not be alone on the road to electric transportation. By the end of this year there will be at least 5 countries supporting the same policies and on the same framework. As to the car industry – In the words of Lee Iaccoca – It is time to lead, follow or get out of the way.

I first wrote back in January about the revolutionary all-electric-vehicle project in Israel. At that time I had only found press release material. Since then I’ve found more background at founder Shai Agassi’s blog. Here he describes the rollout of the Project Better Place venture with Israel and Renault. And an English translation of his announcement speech is here.

Today I learned that one of those 5 countries is Denmark, which will have the added cachet of wind power as the nominal source of the electrons. Plus a sufficient quantity of such Denmark EV’s could realize my personal dream of using the EV batteries as distributed storage for excess wind or solar power. Denmark generates about 20% of their electricity from wind, averaging significant excess above grid requirements. That excess is sold to neighbors at a big discount. With the EV storage scheme in place, that excess power could be sold back into the grid.

Here’s an excerpt from The Register on the new Denmark project:

…Agassi said that the Israeli and Danish projects were broadly similar in size and timescale. Both will see the first vehicles on the road next year, with production ramping up into thousands in 2010, by which time the fueling infrastructure will be starting to emerge.

Also like Israel, the Danish government will be offering tax breaks on the vehicles. According to Agassi, the average price of a car in Denmark is $60,000 (about €38,000), while the tax break could price an electric car as low as $20,000 there. So the Project Better Place formula for success so far seems to be to get the attention of a power company to provide the network, and secure the tax breaks that will make electric vehicles a compelling proposition compared to petrol. This may not play so well in countries that don’t already tax motor vehicles heavily, and/or that have a substantial auto manufacturing industry.

The Denmark infrastructure will consist of approximately 500,000 charging spots and 150 battery swap stations, allowing vehicles to be charged overnight, and the swap stations to be used as a gas station equivalent for longer journeys. Agassi sees it as vital that using an electric vehicle is at least as convenient as using a petrol driven one, so the battery swap should take no longer than it would to fill a tank of petrol – but he claims 20 seconds is do-able.

Drivers won’t own the batteries, and will pay based on miles driven rather directly for electricity used, so the age of the battery installed shouldn’t be a major issue so long as it’s good for the specified mileage, nor will drivers lose money by trading in batteries before they’re fully run down.

Agassi’s startup raised $200 million in venture capital last year. That was all equity, which could leverage a billion or so of the infrastructure investment required to emplace all the charging stations, battery installation & replacement, etc.

If this doesn’t generate some real excitement in the EV space I’ll be astonished. I sure hope this is one of the 10% of VC deals that becomes a big winner.

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