Monday, January 21, 2008

Greening the land of milk and honey


Never far from the cutting edge in technological matters, Israel may once again be leading the way for the world, this time in its proposed adoption of the electric car as the main method of transport for its citizens.

A New York Times report this morning says Israel has entered into a partnership with car manufacturers Renault and Nissan to "make Israel a laboratory to test the practicality of an environmentally clean electric car." The article also specifies the Jewish state as "the perfect test tube" for a national, electric car experiment.

Renault and Nissan will mass-produce electric cars for the Jewish state to test the market. In return, Israel reduces its dependency on fossil fuels and gets a greenification unlike any other country out there.

Ehud Olmert has said he expects Israel's reliance on petroleum to be erased by the end of the next decade.

It's still early days in the process, but major politicians and businessmen in Israel are falling all over each other to get in on the project. A bunch of details like government sponsored tax-exemptions and the start of construction on a network of recharge stations still have to be ironed out.

But man, if this thing actually takes off, Israel officially becomes the coolest country in the world. I wonder if Israel would even have a carbon footprint afterwards?

What do you think?

(Pictured: Nissan's HyperMini EV prototype electric car, unveiled at last year's Tokyo Motor Show)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yet more evidence of the superiority of Israeli engineering.

Israel is by far the middle east leader in technological advancement -- from cars to computer technology to medical breakthroughs.

Blintzkrieg said...

The neatest thing about this is how Israel is leading the way in the adoption of a new environmental ethos.

What an awesome example for the world.

Take that, Al Gore!