Did Better Place actually need a better time? Do any of you drive an electric car?

I do — and I can’t tell you how desperate it’s made me at times. I’ve literally been stranded on the London to Amsterdam route, waiting for a tow truck because I couldn’t find the right charger along the way. The infrastructure just wasn’t there to support the journey. And every time that happens, I think: what a pity that Better Place isn’t still around.

Better Place was a startup founded in Israel in 2007 that set out to solve exactly this problem. Instead of fiddling with different plugs, charging times, and apps, they wanted to build a global network of battery-swapping stations — you’d just drive in, swap out your empty battery for a full one, and be back on the road in minutes (Agassi, 2010). They raised nearly $1 billion, and rolled out projects in Israel, Denmark, Australia, and the U.S. (Business Insider, 2013).

Anyone with an electric card dreams of this, right? BUT! Better Place failed spectacularly by 2013 because of some very recognisable marketing and internationalisation mistakes. First, they tried to scale internationally before securing a strong home base. What worked in Israel, where cities are dense and distances short, didn’t work in sprawling markets like Australia or the U.S. (The Guardian, 2013). Second, they misread consumer behaviour. Most people didn’t want to commit to a single provider’s battery system — they wanted freedom of choice and compatibility (Kotler & Keller, 2016)HA!!!! We still don't have this. And third, they over-relied on partnerships with automakers that never fully materialised. ¿What happened there? And is that a counting your eggs before they hatch mistake? I guess without multiple big brands on board, the model was doomed.

It’s still a great idea though!!! The tragedy here is that the idea was ahead of its time. Infrastructure gaps are still a nightmare today — as my own towing story and so many of my friends, proves. Better Place’s failure wasn’t because people didn’t need the solution; it was because the company scaled too fast, across too many borders, without accounting for cultural, regulatory, and technological differences in adoption perhaps?

So the lesson in international marketing, timing and localisation are everything. Even if your product solves a real problem, if you misjudge readiness across markets, you can end up with a billion-dollar collapse :/ instead of global success.

And for those of us who’ve been stuck on the roadside hunting for chargers… it’s hard not to wish Better Place had actually worked.

To read more about it check out:

Agassi, S. (2010). Reinventing the Automobile: Better Place and the Future of EVs. Tel Aviv: Better Place Press. Business Insider (2013). How Better Place blew $1 billion. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/better-place-failure-2013-5 (Accessed: 10 September 2025). Kotler, P. and Keller, K. L. (2016). Marketing Management. 15th ed. Harlow: Pearson. The Guardian (2013). Better Place electric car company files for bankruptcy. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/27/better-place-electric-car-bankruptcy (Accessed: 10 September 2025).