Electric Car Company Better Place Files for Israel Bankruptcy

Pipe Dream: Better Place had vowed to erect electric car charging stations across Israel. Image by getty images

By JTA May 26, 2013

The electric car company Better Place, which had pledged to erect electric car charging stations throughout Israel, has filed for bankruptcy in an Israeli court.

In a motion filed in Tel Aviv’s Central District Court on Sunday to dissolve the company, Better Place said it was looking for a temporary liquidator.

The company, based in Palo Alto, Calif., fired about half of its staff in October 2012.

Better Place provides charge spots and battery-switch stations for the Renault Fluence ZE, an electric car that went on sale last year in Israel. Fewer than 1,000 of the cars have been sold in Israel.

Better Place had raised more than $850 million in investments since its founding in 2007.

The company lost $812 million in 2012 alone and would have needed at least another four years and investment of some $500 million to reach a breakeven point, the Israeli business daily Globes reported.

“We stand by the original vision as formulated by Shai Agassi of creating a green alternative that would lessen our dependence on highly polluting transportation technologies,” the company’s management said in a statement issued Sunday. “The vision is still valid and important and we remain hopeful that eventually the vision will be realized for the benefit of a better world. However, Better Place will not be able to take part in the realization of this vision.”

Agassi, the Israeli-American founder of Better Place, was ousted by its board last year. Agassi then resigned from the company’s board of directors.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO