'Texas to Tel Aviv'

Thomas L. Friedman has a great Op-Ed in the New York Times, where he imagines:

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

You'd have the start of an energy revolution.

You can read about T. Boone Pickens here, Shai Agassi is the founder of Better Place Project which seeks to make Israel fully equipped with an electric car "system" in the not too distant future.

Agassi's concept, backed by the Israeli government, is this--the electric car system will work similar to pay-by-minute cell phone subscription. Subscribers to the program would get a car and a battery. The roadways will be scattered with charging stations and garages where batteries can be replaced. The first cars, built by Renault, will be on Israeli roads next year.

Israel, because of its small size but large percentage of undeveloped land is an ideal place to develop the infrastructure for a countrywide electric car makeover. It will also serve as a great model for other nations to follow suit.

And I believe Mr. Friedman to be correct, combining the efforts of Shai Agassi and T. Boone Pickens together would make for amazing possibilities.

In days of hardship and strife, it is always nice to see positive news coming out of Israel.

Thank you, Shai Agassi, for striving to bring electric cars to the Jewish State.