In his column this morning Tom Friedman lauds transportation solutions being tried in Denmark and Israel and wonders why we’re not being as innovative here:
What business model am I talking about? It is Shai Agassi’s electric car network company, called Better Place. Just last week, the company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., announced a partnership with the state of Hawaii to road test its business plan there after already inking similar deals with Israel, Australia, the San Francisco Bay area and, yes, Denmark.
The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy — such as wind and solar — as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets — the first pilots were opened in Israel this week — plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.
What Mr. Friedman may not be aware of is that a solution that’s appropriate for Israel, Denmark, or even Hawaii may not be appropriate for the United States. Israel is a little small than the state of New Jersey. Denmark is smaller than West Virginia. The complexity and cost of a grid of the sort being discussed doesn’t vary linearly with the distance. It’s a least on the order of NlogN (if not N2—I’d need to work out the math). It doesn’t scale nicely.
That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. It just means that the cost constaints are a lot different. It probably doesn’t make financial sense.
