Better Place, the organization that tried to introduce the concept of battery swapping for electric cars on a large scale but went bankrupt, has just been sold to “Sunrise Group” for $12 million.
Since its start in 2007, Better Place lost $823 million and only sold 950 electric vehicles. It will live on a bit now that it has been bought by Sunrise Group. Sunrise will continue to operate 15 of Better Place’s stations in Israel and keep 50 of its 85 employees as part of this deal. $4.9 million of the purchase is for Better Place’s Israeli assets, while $6.9 million is for Better Place Switzerland’s intellectual property.
Better Place Station.
Image Credit: Better Place on Facebook.
Sunrise happens to be run by Yosef Abramowitz, who previously showed an interest in Better Place.
The question many are now asking is: “Is the problem the battery swapping concept itself, or the way in which Better Place went about applying it?”
The fate of even great ideas can be terrible at the hands of the wrong people.
As we’ve now seen, Tesla is actually getting into the battery swapping arena. However, there are still strong criticisms against the viability of the concept. We’ll have to wait and see what Abramowitz does with Better Place.
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