Project Better Place Israel Appoints CEO

13 March 2008

Project Better Place (earlier post) has named Major General Moshe Kaplinsky as CEO of Project Better Place Israel, where he will lead the build out of an electric recharge grid network infrastructure for electric vehicles. Project Better Place today also established Tel Aviv as its primary research and development center to help develop the technology roadmap for the mass deployment of electric vehicles.

Project Better Place also named three partners:

• Strategic design firm NewDealDesign of San Francisco will develop the industrial design for the charging stations and other consumer touch points for the grid; and

• Israel-based Aran Research and Development Ltd. and Nekuda DM Ltd. will develop and install the electric vehicle recharging stations in Israel.

In January, Project Better Place announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Renault-Nissan to build the world’s first Electric Recharge Grid Operator (ERGO) model for clean transportation in Israel. (Earlier post.)

Under the agreement, Project Better Place will build the electric recharge grid, and Renault-Nissan will provide the electric vehicles. Next year, Project Better Place expects to deploy hundreds of charging stations as the company moves toward wide-scale deployment in 2011.

Before joining Project Better Place Israel, Kaplinsky most recently served as deputy chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).