Shai Agassi boldly predicts one-third of Israel's cars will run on electricity within five years. It would be an outlandish claim if the entrepreneur hadn't lined up a sweet plan to jump-start the country's adoption of EVs.

Agassi's Silicon Valley startup Better Place has signed a deal under which 92 corporate fleet owners will replace their conventional vehicles with electric vehicles when their leases begin expiring next year. What's more, Better Place has forged a partnership with Dor Alon, one of Israeli's largest gas station chains, to deploy its battery swap technology. We'll see the first of the Renault electrics on the road in 2011, and they'll plug into one of the dozens of charging stations Better Place is erecting or change their batteries in about the time it takes to fill your gas tank.

Many major automakers are scrambling to develop electric vehicles, and we'll see the first of them – the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf – on the road by the end of this year. But no one is looking at adopting them at the scale or pace Agassi and Renault/Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn are talking about.

“With the Better Place project, for the first time, we in Israel are providing a solution for one of the biggest global problems,” Agassi said Sunday, according to the Jerusalem Post. “By a happy coincidence, the Israeli government announced today that it was calling for a national plan to reduce Israel’s dependence on fossil fuels. I promise you that we had nothing to do with it, but we are happy about it because it shows where we’re going.”

Agassi spoke during the opening of Better Place Center, a "demonstration center" near Tel Aviv where Israelis can try out an electric car. The center is housed in a refurbished petroleum tank. But the opening was overshadowed by Agassi's announcement that many of Israeli's biggest fleets will embrace EVs beginning next year. When the last of them switches to cars with cords, some 45,000 vehicles will run on electricity.

"That's one-third of the fleet and half the fleet cars," Agassi told Reuters, noting that the country's 280 biggest fleets comprise about 100,000 vehicles. "By 2020 there will be more electric cars sold per year than gas cars."

Many of those cars will be Renaults, at least to start. They'll be built in Turkey and sold at a rate of 1,000 a month beginning next year. Renault has a contract to build 100,000 EVs by 2016.

"We are starting a country-wide test nine months from now," Agassi said at the opening, according to Bloomberg. "By the second half of 2011 we will open for consumers a full commercial launch after which 1,000 cars a month will come into the market."

Better Place says there will be between 70 and 100 charging stations open by next year to ensure people can charge those cars when they aren't at home. The startup got a big boost from Morgan Stanley and HSBC when the two firms invested $350 million last month. Reuters says that puts Better Place's value at $1.25 billion.

"We think there will be extremely large demand and Better Place can rapidly achieve profitability," Mark Norbury of HSBC told reporters Sunday. "We like Better Place's business model."

The company is slated for another big infusion of cash. Israel Corp., already a huge backer, plans to invest another $72 million next month, bringing its total stake to 30 percent, according to Bloomberg.

“We believe this is the way for the future,” Idan Ofer, chairman of Israel Corp., said. “This is actually the biggest business opportunity I can see for the next 20 years.”

*Photo: Shai Epstein / Better Place via Flickr

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