Fancy a free (electric) car?

By Gerard Wynn

LONDON (Reuters) - Plummeting car sales, climate change, high oil prices and the threat of global recession. The answer? Free electric cars.

So says the founder of California-based electric car operator Better Place, Shai Agassi.

"Do you want a $40,000 car, a $20,000 car or drive this car off the lot for free?" he asks.

His question compares the rough cost of a new hybrid electric car such as the proposed General Motors Corp Chevrolet Volt, an economy conventional gas-driven car, and his proposed contract to buy a pure electric car.

Better Place is a $200 million-backed venture to install the electric power network to charge electric cars, whether at home, at work or on the road at the equivalent of today's filling stations.

Agassi calculates the present running cost of a pure electric car at some 7 cents per mile compared with about 35 cents to run on gasoline -- contrasting the dual cost of electricity plus battery with the cost of gasoline.

That price difference is the source of his teaser.

Agassi reckons he can offer to buyers of electric cars a contract whereby if they pay the same per month as they would to run a gasoline car, the dealer could keep some of the difference in running costs -- which would be enough to cover the vehicle purchase.

In that way pure electric cars could leapfrog gasoline-electric hybrids in the pipeline or already in use, such as the Toyota Prius, said Agassi, as a cheaper alternative to beat plummeting car sales and in a race to find oil alternatives.

The concept is to install uniform electric car charging points at designated parking lots in residential areas and workplaces. In addition, to allow longer drives, the company would roll out electric filling stations.

But it is still in a very early phase.

"We're in the process of going through a series of tests of installing our charge spots, about 1,000 of them in about 50 different prototype parking lots," said 40-year old Agassi.

"We're (planning) installing 500,000 spots across Israel by mid-2011."

RECESSION

Major automakers last week reported plunging U.S. sales for September, led by a 34 percent slide at Ford Motor Co, as an escalating credit crisis hit the slumping industry.