We pulled over in Jutland for a coffee and a driver change, and lo and behold:  a defunct Better Place station.  I had not seen one of these.  As you may know, Better Place was a very ambitious plan to supply batteries, in a quick and easy swap – spent for fully recharged – which went out of business in May.  Being the cockeyed optimist I am, I take this as a sign of the burgeoning success of electric vehicles because the competition to the Better Place model was simply too much from “conventional” EVs.  (Actually, Tesla offers a battery swap option so there’s nothing inherently wrong with the idea.  It’s just that the execution from Better Place was poor.)

Anyway, I applaud the high ambition of Better Place and, for that matter, Solyndra, and the many others that we’ll see fall out along the way to a decarbonized and denuclearized energy economy.  They had some vision and, for whatever reason, got left behind.  They said that Tesla was a folly but look where they are.