Better Place Invades Tokyo
Move over! A Tokyo taxi.
Forget about the crafty Japanese starving off any attempt of honest American companies to penetrate the Japanese market. A true blue American company, founded by true blue American venture capital, goes right for the heart of Japan: Tokyo’s taxi market.
The darling of venture capital writers at Wired and Red Herring, Palo Alto’s Better Place is fighting the good fight against a market that is the fiefdom of the Toyota Crown: Tokyo’s (usually LPG or CNG powered) taxi market.
On Monday, the company that was founded by former SAP star Shai Agassi, uncovered three electric taxis, along with a million dollar charging station. According to The Nikkei [sub], “the taxis will cruise Tokyo’s streets for three months to test their safety and reliability, and officials said they will then decide whether to continue or expand the program. Mr. Agassi said he hopes other large cities will follow.” Tokyo alone is quite a market: Tokyo has 60,000 taxies, almost five times the number of cabs in New York. The ride must also cost about five times the price of a New York cab. (JFK to downtown Manhatta: $50. NRT to downtown Tokyo: $250 )
To overcome range-, cost-, and recharge-time anxiety, Better Place preaches as a system of switchable batteries. The company owns the batteries, people will pay “for miles like a mobile phone user pays for minutes, at prices still to be determined,” says the Nikkei. Empty batteries can be switched for full ones in 60 seconds, faster than it takes to fill up your car.
Smart devils they are at Better Place: The actual cars on trial are converted Nipponese Nissan Rogue crossovers.
Where there is Nissan, Renault is not far away. They are manufacturing cars for Better Place. Better Place buys lithium-ion batteries from suppliers such as A123 Systems and – will the circle be unbroken – from Automobile Energy Supply Corp., a battery joint venture between Nissan and NEC .
(Speaking of Tokyo: Your BS will go from Beijing to NYC tomorrow, with a stopover in Tokyo. If I have recovered on Thursday, normal reporting will resume.)
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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$250 taxi ride? Lapdance included?
That photo was taken in Singapore. Most of those Comfort cabs are powered by diesel. Yes, they do smell & vibrate like your grandpa's diesel.