The nation’s government has been trying to persuade is people to turn to more fuel-efficient cars. The country’s dependence on foreign oil has caused more problems than you can shake a hybrid at. Environmental concerns have caused many people to invest in hybrids and electric cars instead of the gas-guzzlers they would normally buy. Sounds like the United States, right?
The same exact thing is going on in Israel, too. In fact, the Israeli government recently announced a major plan to encourage its citizens to buy electric cars and leave their gas-powered cars behind. And with the help of Nissan, the plan could work.
In conjunction with the French company Renault and California’s Better Place organization, Nissan is introducing electric cars to the Israeli market soon. Later this year, the automaker is going to test market a few dozen electric vehicles before mass marketing them in 2011.
Israel’s government is trying to help, too. At the beginning of this year, the government cut the tax rate for electric cars to a mere 10 percent instead of the usual tax placed on cars.
Nissan is also working on building the infrastructure that the nation will need to support such a plan. That includes about 500,000 charging stations and hundreds of battery-exchange facilities. The charging stations will be placed at hundreds of thousands of parking spots all across the nation so drivers can charge their car while they’re shopping, eating or just visiting. For longer trips, they can swap batteries at one of the exchange facilities. And since the Better Place organization actually owns the batteries, the driver doesn’t incur much of a cost in order to do this.
I can’t wait until these cars are available at the Nissan dealer around the corner from my house. I’ll be one of the first people in line if it means never needing to pay nearly $100 to fill up my car again.
