Better Place unveiled its battery swap system today and said the $500,000 gadget can replace a dead battery and get you back on the road in less time than it takes to fill your gas tank.

The prototype revealed in Japan is the first of what the Silicon Valley startup promises will be countless automated battery exchange stations that will one day dot our cities. The technology will make it possible to travel long distances in an EV without the hassle of stopping to recharge your battery, company founder and CEO Shai Agassi said.

"Today marks a major milestone for the automotive industry as well as Better Place," Agassi said during the demonstration in Yokohama, which was shown live via webcast. "For nearly a century, the automotive industry has been inextricably tied to oil. Today we are demonstrating a new path forward."

The demonstration came six months after Better Place opened 17 EV charging stations in Tel Aviv, the first step in its plan to have 150,000 places to plug in throughout Israel by 2011. The company, which is working with Renault on an EV, also plans to have 100 battery swap stations in Israel by then. It's a model the startup hopes to replicate in Denmark, Australia, California, Hawaii and other locations where it has forged alliances with governments and utilities to hasten the adoption of cars with cords.

Taken together, the two developments show just how far Better Place has come in the 19 months since Agassi announced his audacious plan to bring EVs to the masses.

And how far it still has to go.

Most of the major automakers are racing to develop electric vehicles, and the first of them are slated to arrive next year. The question many people have is just where we're supposed to charge those cars when they aren't in our driveways.

Better Place is but one company trying to solve that riddle, and it's approaching it from two sides. First, it wants to blanket cities with charging stations that would be installed in public parking lots and other locations. That's relatively straightforward; far more challenging - some would say ludicous - is its plan to establish networks of battery swap stations. That was the focus of today's demonstration in Japan, where the Ministry of Environment has signed on with Better Place to spur the adoption of EVs.

The technology shown in Yokohama was little more than a proof-of-concept prototype, and it works a lot like an automated car wash. (The demo model was installed on a raised platform so the audience could see how it works.) As the video below shows, the system uses robotic trays - Better Place calls them "shuttles" - to remove a depleted battery and replace it with a fresh one while everyone stays in the car. The shuttles can be used with a wide variety of battery shapes and sizes, and Agassi said the system can make a swap in less than a minute.

"The goal was to make the switch of a battery faster than filling your tank," Agassi told the audience, which included Denmark's and Israel's ambassadors to Japan. "We have seen this device work in under 40 seconds in our shop."

The swap technology is still a work in progress, and Better Place plans to continue refining it during trials in Japan and Israel using prototype EVs from Renault, Subaru and Mitsubishi. Once deployed, the swap stations will be used in conjunction with charging stations to keep electric cars going. Better Place will own the batteries and charging infrastructure and sell consumers "subscriptions" similar to cell phone plans. Wired's Daniel Roth laid it all out in a cover story you can find here.

"We're an electrical services provider," is how Sidney Goodman, VP of auto alliances, explained it to us recently. "We buy batteries and electricity, and we sell miles."

While some automakers like what they've heard about Better Place's plan for charging stations in cities like San Francisco and throughout Hawaii, they're skeptical - if not dismissive - of the swap station technology.

Two leading automakers developing electric vehicles told us privately the idea will never fly because batteries are key components and asking consumers to swap them out is akin to asking them to replace the engine when the car runs out of gas. They also say the plan will require a level of standardization automakers aren't likely to embrace.

Ford, Toyota and Fisker Automotive offered their own reasons why the technology won't work during the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference last month, according to The Business Insider. They range from the technical - repeatedly removing batteries could damage their protective seals - to Henrik Fisker's observation that Better Place's gadget may not work beneath his low-slug sedan.

Better Place isn't worried. Goodman concedes there will one day be many different makes and models of electric cars on the road, but they'll use batteries from a relatively small number of manufacturers. That makes the standardization issue less of a headache. And even if some automakers don't sign on to the swap strategy, their cars will still work with Better Place's charging stations. That means consumers will still benefit from the startups technology.

Then there's the matter of paying for it all. Agassi says the swap stations could cost $500,000 apiece, and Goodman says the cost to bring 150,000 charge stations and 100 battery swap stations to Israel could hit $200 million. It'll cost about that much to do the same in Denmark.

Better Place has raised more than $200 million in funding and forged partnerships with several governments and utilities. But it concedes it will need more than that if its plan is to succeed on a massive scale.

"The challenge isn't the batteries, and it isn't the cars," Goodman told us. "It's the coalition you need to make it happen. It's a huge integration project. All of these components are progressing. But they need to be brought together."

Photo and video: Better Place

See Also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKA4GhVn0a4