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Havish Gupta
Figuring Out • 9m
Brilliant Ideas That Didn't Work Out Why not swap your electric car's battery instead of charging it? Well, That's what a 2007 American startup called "Better Place" did! In electric cars, batteries are fixed and can't be removed. So, Better Place partnered with Renault to make cars with replaceable batteries. You just had to take your car to their swapping station, where a robot would swap the battery, and you could resume your journey. All this a $300 monthly cost. This was fast, convenient, and awesome. Thus they raised $850 million and had just $10 million in revenue at their peak. It began its operations in 2011 in Israel and Denmark. But it went bankrupt in 2013, even before starting in the USA! Why? 1. Building and maintaining their swapping stations was very expensive. 2. It was hard to achieve standardization in battery packs across different cars. 3. Limited Car Partnerships Additionally, consumer adoption and high cost also led to the failure of this unicorn.
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