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A comment on Electric car startup Better Place liquidating after $850 million investment.

Re:Electric car startup Better Place liquidating after $850 ... by cheeseprocedure on Sunday May 26, 2013 @12:18PM (#5771471)
An exec in the renewables sector once told me that battery subsystems in electrics and hybrids were so proprietary and critical to design that the idea of standardizing them across major manufacturers would never happen in the near term. It's a shame; Better Place's model was fascinating (but the idea of being locked into one manufacturer is not appealing).
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Re:Electric car startup Better Place liquidating after $850 ... by revelation on Sunday May 26, 2013 @12:28PM (#5771501)
They don't even manage to standardize a charging port. And its not like there are special pink electrons.
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Re:Electric car startup Better Place liquidating after $850 ... by eksith on Sunday May 26, 2013 @12:44PM (#5771557)
This is what really bothers me. We have USB, VGA, DVI, RJ-45, 3-pin electrical (well, that's one hiccup across countries, but at least it's usually the consistent in the same country), why is it so hard to standardize a multiphase port?
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Re:Electric car startup Better Place liquidating after $850 ... by Yoni1 on Sunday May 26, 2013 @01:00PM (#5771608)
Do iPhones use standard MicroUSB? The non-standard port is a business decision.
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Re:Electric car startup Better Place liquidating after $850 ... by CognitiveLens on Sunday May 26, 2013 @02:59PM (#5772058)
in Europe, they have to (albeit with an adapter) due to EC regulations. Seems like a positive use of government regulation, and with the amount of government interest in electric cars, my outsider view is that a federal standard for charging ports would not get an excessive amount of lobbying resistance.
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Re:Electric car startup Better Place liquidating after $850 ... by eksith on Sunday May 26, 2013 @06:06PM (#5772604)
iPhones don't utilize public roads and aren't really a necessity in getting to work. Cars are for most of those without a public transport option.

If I can't buy gas from Shell with an Exxon fuel filler of a particular model car and there are mostly Shell stations in my area, I'm not buying that car.

Standardizing will only benefit electric car manufacturers. Surely, they can all get together and agree to one standard as they will benefit from any third party willing to create a charging station franchise. IMO non-standard in this case is a very poor business decision.

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