Better Place is the idea of sustainable services for transport created by Shai Agassi. I received a mail from Better Place that they will be launching in Australia their services with a partnership with Macquarie Capital Group and AGL. Macquarie will help in raising $1Billion and AGL will provide the renewable energy.

So what is better place?

Better Place is a game changing business model to redraw the concept of transportation. Moving transportation into the area of mobility services.

From their website:

t’s simple. The car has evolved. Gas guzzlers have gone the way of the dinosaur—there’s a reason they call it “fossil fuel.” In their place we have electric versions of our favorite makes and models being developed by established car companies.

And the evolution of the car means the evolution of the entire transportation model. When we eliminate the dependence on oil, we eliminate the environmental and economic damage that came with it.

The good news is we’re evolving into something very familiar. The Better Place business model is one most of us already experience every day—with our mobile phones.

Think of it like this: we pay mobile providers for minute-by-minute access to cell towers connected together in cellular networks. Truth is, we pay comparatively little—or next to nothing—for the phones themselves. After all, what you’re really buying is air time, not a box with buttons.

The same model works for transportation. Just replace the phone with an electric car, replace the cell towers with battery recharge stations, and replace the cellular networks with an electric recharge grid. Now you’re buying miles, not minutes.

When you think of it in those terms, suddenly a seemingly revolutionary business model becomes something a lot more proven—and more than a little appealing.

Why pay for an addictive, expensive and harmful substance like oil when you can simply pay for transportation as a sustainable service? Why produce pollution when you can bring your emissions to zero and produce economic advantage as the only by-product? The proposition sells itself.

• Drivers pay to access a network of charging spots and conveniently located battery exchange stations powered by renewable energy.
• Drivers pay for the miles they drive.
• Cars are made much more affordable—even free in some markets—by the business model’s financial and environmental incentives to add drivers into the network.
• Better Place operates the electric recharge grid that brings it all together.

This is transportation as a sustainable service, with drivers as subscribers, and Better Place as a true “mobility operator.”

The concept is game changing because of its vision and the determination of Shai Agassi to make it happen. An idea like this is in a classic chicken and egg strategy issue and Shai is using this venture backed money, his ability to convince high profile companies and governments and sheer will power to create the infrastructure and then sell the product.

I am excited that this is coming to Australia. With Australia’s high urban concentration, high reliance on cars, one of the highest per capital greenhouse gas emissions and multiple opportunities in renewable energy (solar, geothermal, wind etc) it is well suited to this environment.

What is more interesting is the whole idea of selling electric vehicles as a subscription service. The whole world is moving towards this. In fact, the idea behind TechNovus, the company I started is to sell a computer as a subscription service.

I have been using a quote from Druker in my email signature for a while – “The only way to predict the future is to create it”. And this is what Better Place is all about.

Australia does not have many innovative business models happening. This is a great bet by Shai and his partners. What is going to happen? I am going to follow this.