Electric Car Plants In Israel?
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 02.26.07
(Sabra Carmel 12, 1967)
Israelis are full of original ideas. Go to the doctor in Tel Aviv and you may find your GP is writing a novel, is an expert on French wine and is building a strawbale house in the desert. Israelis are ideas people. Dreamers. Technology enablers. Founders of ICQ (now owned by AOL) were from Israel, the first VoIP phone call was made with Israeli technology; IBM, Intel and General Electric have major research and development centers here - not by chance or because labor is cheap - but because Israelis love to build things from the ground up. Last week, we read in the news that the Israeli Government has finally rubberstamped the plans to build a solar power facility in Israel – even though technology originating in Israel has already been set up in power plants around the world. (Abu Dhabi is also in the news) But what took Israel so long?
At the past Davos meet, Israel’s Vice Premier Shimon Peres announced that he will turn Israel into the first regional pilot center for manufacturing electric cars to be supplied to Mideast neighbors such as Jordan. According to this Haaretz story, Jordan’s King Abdullah II was positive about the plans. But this journalist here points out that Israel is too small for such a project. Israel’s best bets are to focus on being “enablers” that research and build electric fuel cells rather that focusing on full-out manufacturing. We tip our hats to that. The old Israeli car manufacturer Sabra came out with Sussitas and Carmels that look cool, but are known for being lemons. A common Israeli saying goes that camels liked eating the fiberglass used in Sabra cars, and would often gnaw away at them, explaining why they often had chunks missing from their exterior. ::Haaretz
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