Electric vehicle network plugs in

MELBOURNE will be the fourth place in the world to get an electric vehicle network.

MELBOURNE will be the fourth place in the world to get an electric vehicle network as the Silicon Valley-based technology company Better Place embarks on the next stage of its $1 billion Australian expansion plans.

The company's founder, Israeli software whiz and multi-millionaire Shai Agassi, revealed in an interview with The Weekend Australian a Melbourne rollout of charge and battery switch stations for electric cars would "be instrumental in proving to the Australian market how the world looks without gasoline".

"Getting a network into Melbourne is the next phase," he said of the group's Australian plans.

Better Place is rolling out a network of electric car recharge points in homes, workplaces and shopping centres across Canberra and has struck a partnership with ActewAGL for the supply of 100 per cent green power to the network.

It has almost completed electric car networks in Israel and Denmark.

"Sometimes you have to see it on the ground to believe it. Seeing a Holden Commodore drive over a battery switch station, switching the battery, driving around Canberra and driving visitors around, I think is the strongest proof to some people that are sceptics that this actually can be done," Mr Agassi said.

He said earlier this year the group was conducting an equity raising in Australia to ensure the local rollout was self- funded.

The Australian rollout is being overseen by IT entrepreneur and former state politician Evan Thornley.

Mr Agassi said Better Place was also looking at linking capital cities along Australia's eastern seaboard. It eventually envisages 500 charge stations across the country. "We looked at the Melbourne-Brisbane road. If you think of the corridor -- Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane -- it is the same length from San Diego to Seattle.

"But it is easier to do Melbourne to Brisbane in terms of a network than it is to do the entire network of the US. The guys in the White House will look at Aussies, saying 'We can do the same thing'. We still hold the hope that will happen," he said.

Better Place has targeted Australia because it has the world's seventh-highest per capita rate of car ownership, with more than 15 million cars on the road.

Mr Agassi said a rollout of a similar network in the US was at least two years away.