Better Place has been racking up contracts with cities, states and countries to build electric vehicle charging stations.  Coulomb is growing its own presence with partnerships with cities and businesses to build its own network of plug-in vehicle charging stations.  They both are growing rapidly but in different directions.

Both companies were founded in 2007 and both companies began in California. Shai Agassi founded a Better Place and Richard Lowenthall, Praveen K. Mandel, Harjinder Bhade, and Dave Baxter are four of the six founders of Coulomb.  While Better Place has spent much of its time overseas, Coulomb has concentrated on mostly U.S. cities and businesses.

In 2008 Better Place agreed to build electric vehicle charging infrastructure in Israel and Renault-Nissan agreed to produce the cars.  Since that time Better Place has partnered with the city of Copenhagen in Denmark, the country of Australia, the states of California and Hawaii in the US, the Province of Ontario, Canada, and the city of Yokohama in Japan to build charging infrastructure.  Better Place is working with corporations, utilities, governments, car manufacturers and Hybrid/electric battery makers to continue its global growth.

Coulomb has also been working with governments, utilities and corporations to bring its charging infrastructure to the world.  Coulomb has been especially busy in California with charging stations at gas stations and within the cities of San Jose, San Francisco, and at the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico, California.  The city of Chicago in Illinois has Coulomb’s charging stations and the city of Amsterdam in Belgium is Coulomb’s first European venture with more expected.

Each company has its own proprietary technology and business model.  Coulomb envisions a subscription type service where people are issued an RFID key fob that allows them to use the charging stations that are placed at gas stations, corporate parking lots, municipal parking lots, and on streets around cities.

Better Place will also have a subscription service but its business model envisions placing charging stations in parking lots, on streets, at companies, and at individual residences.  In Yokohama, Better Place has demonstrated the replacement of car batteries in drive in facilities.  The company will also have an electric vehicle leasing plan.

Both companies are building new partnerships and searching out new sites for future charging infrastructure.  It will be interesting to see if Coulomb’s strategy or Better Place’s will gain the most ground.

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Entry was posted on Friday, May 29th, 2009 at 11:21 pm under Auto, Green Technology.

Read more entries by Susan Wilson.
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