My speech at the Israel announcement event

Today the government of Israel and Renault-Nissan announced their collaboration along the Better Place framework - creating the first three way partnership for an oil-independent country. I attach the speech I gave today, in English (the original version was in Hebrew),and will attach the other speeches as soon as I get them.

It is a great day! One that many people at Project Better Place worked on diligently for the last few months. It is a great day for our kids, and if we get replicated to many other contries, a great day for a cleaner, safer world.

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Mr. Prime Minister; Mr. Ghosn; honorable guests.  It is an honor to be here with you today.

It is not typical and a rather humbling moment for a founder of a small startup to share a stage with the prime minister of his own country - Ehud Olmert, and one of the legendary CEOs of our times – Carlos Ghosn.

It is not a typical for a government take a bold strategic decision and challenge the private sector to help it solve a problem of global magnitude as the prime minister and its President of Israel did.

But these are not typical times.

These are times where we are running out of oil in the ground and we are running out of  air,  The oil we burn harms the atmosphere that controls the climate of our the planet. We have reached times where in some parts of our world children cannot see the sky.

Finally, we are running out of our most precious commodity of all – we are running out of time.

A few years ago I started thinking about this problem: How can you run an entire country without depending on oil?

The problem, at first, seems too big, almost insurmountable. But the more you think about it, the more you understand – our way of living, our freedoms, our kids’ future depend on solving this problem using only science and technology we have in our hands today, because we don’t have time for a science experiment.

The future of transportation depends on our ability to find another source of energy, one that is sustainable, abundant and not polluting.

For hundreds of millions of years our planet was powered with energy coming from one source - the sun, in all of its energy forms - heat, wind, and waves. What the planet and its inhabitant did not consume got stored in a planetary battery made of “concentrated sun power” – oil, coal and gas. Our planet’s battery got charged over hundreds of millions of years, and yet we have consumed half of the world’s oil in only one century. In the process we got addicted to oil, polluted our cities and altered our planet’s climate.

Project Better Place solution framework looks to convert an entire country into electric cars, powered by batteries, that get their energy from green sustainable electricity sources, through a smart electric recharge grid that covers the entire country. If we can provide the drivers an enjoyable car, that costs less but drives better, a country can build a virtual oil field – one that works forever, but leaves no footprint on the environment. Such virtual oil field is more natural than the holes we have been digging into the earth to fuel our addiction to oil.

Mr Prime Minister, a year ago, when I shared this vision with you, you set ground rules that were very clear:
-    Find the money to fund this vision, outside the government – as the state is not a venture capitalist and cannot fund such projects
-    Find one of the world’s greatest car companies that will build this great electric car, and can build it in mass market scale.

You said if I could do those two things, than I would have your support and I could  spend the money in Israel. I thank you for challenging me.  Your have brought us all to this moment and in fact have created a model of public-private partnership that I believe the rest of world will follow.

I also now know that I need to be more careful what I ask for. I am not sure if I am wiser, but I am definitely older after this year.

Mr. Prime Minister, I am glad to tell you that I found the capital required to fund this vision into reality. The money will be invested by an international collection of investors, led aptly by a company called Israel Corporation – these are all investors that share the vision and understand the opportunity.  Where other saw a problem too big to solve they see an opportunity to move forward one of this century’s most significant economic opportunities.  We do not ask for money from the state, we are investing in this country. I am also glad to tell you that I found a great car company – Renault-Nissan – which is willing to build great electric cars for our people. I found out over the last year in that Renault truly believes in this shared vision, and its people, in particular Carlos Ghosn and Patrick Pelata will work to deliver on their promise to us.

I also want to tell everyone that your leadership and the support of your government has been unwavering -  your government, starting with your own office’s general manager, Ra’anan Dinur, the ministry of finance, trade, infrastructure, transportation, environment, every branch of government took cue from your personal leadership working endless hours to make sure we have the right policy in Israel to make this vision into reality.

I was inspired to take on this mission by two presidents, standing for the two countries where I am a citizen. First, President Kennedy who declared in 1961, despite overwhelming skepticism among the public and the experts, that the US would put a man on the moon within the decade, “not because it is easy but because it hard.” 

A year ago, I started this journey in the office of Israel’s current President, Shimon Peres, who asked me after only two weeks of working with me on this framework “What could be more important than solving this for your country and the world?”. His simple question inspired me to leave my job, my career and take on this mission. He has been an ongoing mentor in this project throughout the entire last year, and is my personal inspiration for what the will of one man can do for this country of ours.

He is an inspiration to me, to Israel and to the world because he has shown that one individual can make possible what few think is possible.

But most importantly, I am inspired in this by my two boys.  I think about the world that they will inherit from us.  And I worry.  If we pass to them our addiction to oil, we will make them pay for our sins. If we pass to them an unlivable planet, we have sinned them. The Prophet Jeremiah says that “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children's teeth are set on edge.” let this proverb not happen in our generation.

Today I stand encouraged.  I am encouraged by the leadership of a government that would stare challenge in the face and see opportunity.  Mr. Prime Minister, you have encouraged me in this from the beginning, and your government has acted wisely by setting the right policies.

Mr. Ghosn, you have shown great leadership in industry, and you and your organization have recognized from the outset that we as a global village are facing problems which cannot be swept under the rug, but that need to be confronted.  As sure as we stand here today, we know that other automakers and infrastructure companies that will follow your lead.  It will be a lasting tribute to you and your company that you were the ones to show the way.

Ladies and gentlemen, Project Better Place is now ready to invest the money and start the journey towards a new transportation system for Israel. You have set the challenge and we are willing and ready to respond together with many companies in Israel, such as the Israel Electric Company and many industrial companies that will enjoy the benefits of this nascent industry starting in this country.

Finally, Mr Prime Minister. Let me promise you that the vision I shared with you one year ago is no longer an unachievable dream.  There are no big scientific breakthroughs that need to occur.  All we need is the will to integrate the systems we have and drive this national project to success.  And the leadership that you witness here today – government leadership, corporate leadership – that indicates that the will of which I speak is abundantly present.  And so starts the defining project for the fourth generation of Israel, we will turn the dream of independence from oil into a reality, and create a brighter future for all of our children.

Thank you.

Comments

[Howard Atkins]

Dear Shai,
I am very pleased that you are pushing this initiative and I hope that the you will have support from industry in Israel.
As an qualified auditor for ISO/TS 16949 ( the automotive quality standard) in Israel I would be very interested in helping you develop your Israeli supplier base.
All the best and bhazlcha
Howard

[Howard Atkins]

Dear Shai,
I am very pleased that you are pushing this initiative and I hope that the you will have support from industry in Israel.
As an qualified auditor for ISO/TS 16949 ( the automotive quality standard) in Israel I would be very interested in helping you develop your Israeli supplier base.
All the best and bhazlcha
Howard

[Matt]

The New York Times just did a long piece on this story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/world/middleeast/21israel.html

The world is very excited about these developments. There's likely a Nobel Peace Prize waiting for the leader of this campaign. Keep up the wonderful work!

[Sarnac]

I have a recharging-logistics suggestion for your electric vehicle project.

I have no financial interest whatsoever in the following, and offer it merely for your project's benefit:

Instead of physically swapping betteries or relying on roadside recharging stations, use inductive charging to on-the-fly recharge moving vehicles.

Essentially the same technology as contactless electric-toothbrush recharging, the vehicle will have large (1m+) inductive charging loops in its undercarriage and a transponder in its front.

The road itself will have transponder readers followed (a meter or more down the road) by nearly-full-lane-width (2m to 3m) inductive rings embedded under the road asphalt. The rings' installation would be minimally disruptive since the road would not have to be dug up, merely cut in a mini-trench perhaps 2 cm wide by 5 to 10 cm deep in a ring (that need not be circular) of 2 to 3 m wide and arbitrarily long.

As a car with a recharger-transponder (functionally identical to the toll-plaze transponders used throughout the US today) drives over the reansponder-reader in the road, the under-road inductive rings are electrified and oscillated, providing current to the car through its recieving inductive rings and giving a fractional recharge to its battery. As the vehicle departs the ring section of the road, the road rings will power-down until the next transponder-equipped vehicle comes along. The transponder's owner gets charged a small amount for each charger that the car utilizes based on the power provided (slower speed = longer charging = higher cost). Cars at full or nearly full charge would deactivate thritransponders to avoid over-charging (in both the electrical and financial meanings).

If your electric vehicle is being driven at 100km/h (27.8 m/s), it will be over a 2m recharger for 7% of a second.

I don't know any specifics of your proposed vehicle, so I'll arbitrarily say that the gound and vehicle charger rings are designed, electrified and oscillated sufficiently to charge 0.5% of your battery power in that 7% of a second at that speed.

If your vehicle has a 200km range, you use up 0.5% of your power every km, so you only need one charger-ring per km to maintain always-topped-up e-cars.

If the chargers are less effective, say 0.1% batter-power transfer in that 7% of a second, then you need 5 chargers per km.

Even if there are insufficient chargers per km for highway speed travel, there will be enough to augment the inherent range of the onboard battery.

Additionally, homes could have their driveways cut into for home induction-rings off their home electric-grid power.

Note: I am not the first to come up with this:
http://www.google.com/patents?q=inductive+recharge+electric+car&spell=1&oi=spell

I hope this suggestion helps ... a limited-geography area is the perfect testing ground for an infrastructure-altered e-car system like I have suggested.

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Mark Wood, [email protected]

[Simon]

Hi Shai. Just want to say congrats to you and everyone else at PBP for today's announcement. It's really exciting to see that you have the commitment of such a major car manufacturer.

It was interesting to hear how much of a part the Israel government played in this. No other government I know of has made such a bold step towards encouraging new forms of transport.

I'm hoping that we will hear of other governments come onboard. UK especially seeing as its where I live.

[Eitan Chamberlin]

Shai,

Your overall initiative, and specifically your speech today, will certainly find its place in the annals of time, not only for Israel but the entire human race. I hate to sound political...but you've broadened this young man's zionistic grin, for I know that the future of our state, environment, and our basic humanity depends on the kind of leadership you are displaying in Project Better Place. Writers like me have fictionalized stories about such a world...a world that is beyond the chains of oil and small-mindness...but you, Shai, are making it a reality, and that makes all the shoddy doubters and onlookers look like fools.

[smiles]

where do you sign up to buy a car ?
i would like one.

[Anjo]

Hi Shai, you care sending me an email with your email address? Really would be very keen on catching up with you,

Anjo de Heus
Redwood Software

[[email protected]]

Thank you very much for all the work you do. Just as another comment made earlier said, this is not just for Israel, whole world will thank you for your efforts.
Solarion

[Robert Goldberg]

My fiance' and I want to be among the first to buy 2 of these cars. Price is no consideration--let's get the hell off Arab oil now!!!!!!!!!!

[Prof. Barbara Hassid]

My business partners are very interested in promoting this idea: We work on joint film/book ventures, and are all very excited about A Better Place, and most interested in learning more. How could we set up a brief informational meeting?
Best Regards, Prof. Barbara Hassid
Edwin Hassid, M.D.
Robert Turner

Contact: Ms. Hassid: 415: 307-1449

[Yoni Davidson]

Hi,
I do think that making it as simple as possiable is the smartest.
don't forget that it is very simple now to put Gas in cars and replacing old habits has to be simple!
If the country has such a support in this project maybe the army would like to to buy some cars, today allmost everybody in the army (from rank - Major and up ) recive a car, i am sure that the budjet for gas is enormose.
I do think it's cheaper for them to buy cars and pay only for the battery - If you can show them that in the price of a car for 3 years they can buy a car and give it power and sell it in the end and get the money back it would save money for them, and will give you a good amount of cars to sell in the beginning.
If the government if up to Help this project it has to do much more!

[Herve Kabla]

Shai, today's move is one of the greatest demonstration of progress and innovation at a large scale. I'm quite sure this is just the beginning of a much longer story to take place.

And what an irony that the first agreement on clean cars is signed in the (almost) only middle-eastern country that does not produce oil...

This is the best possible gift mankind could imagine for Tou Bishvat. Congrats!

[philippe]

i am interested in making a translation in french of your speech. Is that possible?
Thank you in advance
Philippe
www.blogvert.org

[philippe]

What I don't see (not looking at the right place?) is how the energy is going to be produced? I do know that even in Seattle some people get enough energy from the solar cells on their roofs to power the battery of their electric car but how are you going to do it on a much bigger scale?
Link each car to solar panels? :)

[Cynthia]

Building a better world. Kol ha Kavod.
The Green Team.

[Hermann Mallia]

First of all I'd like to thank you for, even if you have been tremendously busy, you still have given my inquiries the attention required. I am most grateful for such and it is really appreciated. As much as you have been motivated by authorities and CEO's, I can tell you that reading through out your speech, yes I realise how difficult it may seem but I liked Kennedy's words "We will do it, not because it is easy but because it hard.”.
I thank you for getting me in contact with Josh Steinmann, with whom I'm making progress, but understand there is still much to do, but hope that within one year, I will achieve the same goals, at least on a smaller scale like you have done. I once again congratulate you in this achievement and assure you of my support and belief in the project.

[Eric Wood]

Way to go Shai. I'm really proud of what you're doing... more than doing though, you're leading and inspiring.

[Emil Möller]

Where should the electrons come from?
- trecers.net/downloads/articles/trec_white_paper.pdf

How to finance that?
- gezen.nl/www.gezen.nl/indexb329.html?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=68

Where to find visions like Agassi's?
- tni.org/detail_page.phtml?&act_id=17306
- bigpicture.tv/videos/watch/f2217062e
- blog.google.org/2008/01/introducing-our-initiatives.html
- wie.org/j28/business.asp

Who to take aboard from the outset?
- global-issues-network.org/gin/pg009.html
- - 158.64.118.15/conference08/index.php?action=show
- big-picture.tv/index.php
- theelders.org/

Then China, India, Russia, the US, etc will follow. And that's what&who we need to make this place a better one: all

Pace e Bene,

Emil Möller
Maastricht, Netherlands

[Ofer Weisglass]

Hi shai

I was wondering about 100-200 k of the car
Don't you think it is too short for normal people and also for business cars?
How you solve the tracks and bigs buses problem? Did you check how much oil they take? Also even the boats that arriving to Israel

what about other alternatives like underground and upground fast trains and buses to have totally less cars and not to add more and more cars on the road?

I personally think that Israel must stop to import cars at all for few yeras.

Sorry for many questions ;-)

Wish you good luck in you project

[Philippe Menahem Sellier]

When I was in Kiriat Sefer aliad Modiyin, I often thought that e-cars or fuel cell cars was THE solution for transportation in Israel : It was in 1998 and unfortunately it was a little bit premature. But now, I only could say to you Hazak, Hazak, Hazak vetitHazek for your extremely good initiative.
As an experienced engineer who knows all the French Renault sites and Research&Dev centers as well (even Renault Sport, Cleanova, Batscap), I’m particularly keen on marketing e-cars for years.
So if you need a french support (technical, excellent relational...) for your project, please don’t hesitate any longer.
Very Best Regards Vegam Kol Ha Kavod

[Moisey Assiq]

This project would fit well within BlueStarPR's new Israel environmental initiative. They educate Americans about Israel's positive contributions beyond the conflict. Their recent environmental campaign was featured on Progressive Talk Radio Green 960AM at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvkiG6ssvNI
They also have free download of posters for from bluestarpr.org

[Tal]

Hi Shai,

Seeing Israel lead the way to a better world makes me proud to be an Israeli.

I had a few questions though:

Is this being developed with a possible expansion to Vehicle-to-Grid in mind? Vehicle-to-Grid seems like another perfect opportunity to test something in Israel before it becoming a reailty in other countries. It would allow countries to more easily use green sources of energy to fuel their electric cars, and thus it seems like a project that should be closely related to this. Plus, with the potential to earn money just by plugging your vehicle into the grid, this could be a major incentive to buy electric cars even after the government tax break expires. ( http://www.google.org/recharge/faq.html#9 )

Also what about getting other companies that are experimenting in these technologies on board, such as Google? (It seems like they have good ideas but need the "laboratory" to test them in)

Thank you for leading the way,
Tal

[Stefan Schaffer]

Shai & team,

congratulation to this important next milestone. PBP is one of the most fascinating endevours of our days and I am sure that as you move along, there will more great ideas and concepts be inspired by the way you guys approach a problem.

All the best
Stefan

[Stefan Schaffer]

Shai & team,

congratulation to this important next milestone. PBP is one of the most fascinating endevours of our days and I am sure that as you move along, there will more great ideas and concepts be inspired by the way you guys approach a problem.

All the best
Stefan