Israel has decided to change the way they we think about cars. Yes, electric cars are a very old idea (1830's) ,but this time you will get to see what governmet can do:
On Monday, the Israeli government was scheduled to announce its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between an American-Israeli entrepreneur and Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor.
More after the flip
If this becomes real, this could push other countries to follow?
Is sounds good:
Agassi predicts that a few thousand electric cars will be on Israeli roads in 2009 and 100,000 by the end of 2010; Israel has 2 million cars on the road, and about 10 percent are replaced each year.
And the government is doing the right thing, at least they don't hate it:
The privately funded plan to build 500,000 recharging points and battery-swap stations for electric cars in the next 18 months has the backing of the government and president, Shimon Peres. Renault and Nissan will develop an electric car with a range of more than 100 miles to be mass-produced from 2011.
FT.com
Israel is a tiny little country, so you really have no need to travel for hundreds of miles. Usually (about) 100 miles seems to be the max, so it is ideal for the electric car.
Is this going to work? Perhaps:
Even though full implementation is years away and not everyone is convinced the plan will work - Israel's chief scientist says the plan is heavy on ideas but light on R&D and existing technology - the idea has already sparked interest elsewhere. Agassi says he is speaking to 15 other countries, many of which, like Israel, relish the idea of reducing their dependency on the world's oil-producing nations.
Time.com
This is interesting, but i want to see some action before i get too excited. And you are not going to see this in the US in a long time, sadly Big oil doesn't like the idea :)
So, what do you think? Is this going to work or is this just daydreaming?