Renault: electric car debuts next year in Israel

posted: Tuesday 20 May 2008 by Alison in: Tech Saloons Renault

renault megane

As we all know, Israel finds itself in a difficult position with the Arab world, as even with more moderate states where it has some middle ground, it’s risky that it will aggravate someone along the line.

It’s only in this climate that we can understand the Israeli politics of wrenching us from the dependency on oil, and the tenacious pursuing of projects in hybrid and electric cars. Renault knows something about this, and has for some time been courting a project of commercialising an electric car in Israel, together with the Project Better Place of Shai Agassi.

In the course of the next year on Israeli streets a small fleet of experimental four-door Renault Megane will debut. They will be equipped with batteries developed from a Nissan/NEC collaboration and will be capable of reaching a 125-mile autonomy. Concurrently, a vast network of “service stations” will see 500,000 recharge points across the state, that will serve in 2010 when vast scale production will start.

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The project is attracting the attention of other nations, notably Norway who has just launched a similar iniative. The hardest test to overcome though, will be the big countries, including the USA, where large distances can only be crossed with batteries with a much greater autonomy. But according to many, it’s only a question of time.

Via | Autoblog.com