Better Place and Renault SA (Euronext: RNO) today made a joint announcement that the Israeli electric car infrastructure developer will buy 100,000 Renault Fluence cars. Better Place will make the purchases by 2016 for the Israeli and Danish markets where it is setting up its infrastructures.
Better Place said that they will market the car in Israel with a four year or 120,000 kilometer warranty and the car "will be marketed at Better Place sales-points and some of Renault's showrooms."
The car will have a special servicing network carried out under a special contract with Israel's Renault importer and distributor Carasso Group. The Renault Fluence itself will be 4.82 meters long, have a wide track of 1,672 mm with a carrying capacity to cater for the requirements of an active family. The all electric car will have a range of 160 kilometers before the battery needs to be recharged. The trunk will only have a 327 liters capacity because of the room taken up by the battery.
Recharging the battery will take 4 to 8 hours, or the battery can be replaced at special exchange station. The replacement process to put in an 80% capacity battery will take 20 minutes.
Renault unveiled the Fluence, which will serve the Israeli and Danish markets at the Frankfurt Auto Show today.
Better Place CEO Shai Agassi told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "We have pledges from 50 firms in Israel that plan to replace company cars with 35,000 electric cars starting in 2011."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 15, 2009
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