Archives for Globalization

When we last encountered Shai Agassi he resigned from his position in software product development at SAP AG and was bashed by the Wall Street Journal “as a failed change agent.”

Agassi’s second act will be far more memorable than his first. He’s raised $200 million in venture capital to build a “new kind of electric car” initially for the Israeli market and then eventually to other countries in the next several years, according to a BusinessWeek article by Steve Hamm.

What strikes me as especially clever about Agassi’s initiative is his idea of separating the battery from the vehicle. “That will allow drivers to pull into a battery-swapping station, a car-wash-like contraption, and wait for 10 minutes while their spent batteries are lowered from the car and fully charged replacements are hoisted into place,” Hamm wrote.

Agassi’s company, called Project Better Place, is based in Silicon Valley. Agassi is also a blogger and certainly worth watching as an innovator. While I hope Agassi’s successful at reinventing the car, I wonder if there’s a third act in his future what it might be. We will be watching.

Here’s a video that introduces the concept.