Want a Free Electric Car? Move to Denmark!

In a press release from 03/28/07 from Renault,

The Renault-Nissan Alliance actively supports the initiative of Project Better Place, which
announced today its second deployment in Denmark.

• Renault will provide Danish customers with 100% electric vehicles at European standards in 2011, providing zero emission mobility while at the same time offering driving performance similar to a gasoline engine.
• Nissan, through its joint venture with NEC, has created an advanced lithium-ion battery pack that both meets the requirements of this electric vehicle and can be mass-produced.

In Denmark, the conditions necessary for electric vehicles to be successfully mass-marketed are being brought together. The Danish government will provide tax incentives on 100% electric vehicles, Renault will supply the electric vehicles and, Better Place Denmark will construct and operate an Electric Recharge Grid across the entire country.

This announcement follows the January 21st 2008 signature of an MOU in Jerusalem by Renault and Project Better Place for the first mass-marketed electric vehicles. This second deployment illustrates the major role played by the Renault-Nissan Alliance to bring to massmarket zero-emission cars.

Talk about a cute car – if only some of the regular or hybrid cars were this great looking! Of course, the car isn’t completely free – seems you have to sign a 6 year contract for batteries and charging. But given the cost of gas nowadays, that’s probably not such a bad deal after all, especially since the project has raised $200 million to build a huge infrastructure of battery-charging locations in Israel and Denmark, replacing about one out of six parking spaces in the countries with the charging stands for its electric cars, letting drivers charge up their batteries on the go.

Now if only the US would hop on the bandwagon with either more electric or hybrid options BEFORE we can’t see where we’re driving from all the pollution… (Or before we run out of gas, hmmmm?)

Technorati Tags: Electric Car, Enviro, Renault