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Better Place, the American-based electric-vehicle services provider, today announced that it has received an award from the Japanese government to conduct a pilot project in Tokyo for the world's first plug-in electric taxis with switchable batteries.


Better Place will partner with Tokyo's largest taxi operator, Nihon Kotsu. The project, which comes on the heels of the company's successful battery switch demonstration earlier this year in Yokohama, is slated to begin in January 2010.


Japanese taxis represent a mere 2 percent of all passenger vehicles on the road in Japan, yet they emit about 20 percent of all carbon dioxide  from vehicles due to their average distance traveled in a given day.


In Tokyo alone, there are approximately 60,000 taxis, a far greater number than in New York, Paris and Hong Kong. Clearly, the outcome of the Tokyo pilot program for electric taxis could point to opportunities in other urban centers.


Additionally, success within the heavy-use taxi industry likely would help to ensure technology transfer to the mass market, where daily mileage is far less on average.


The electric-taxi pilot will showcase the everyday use applications of the Better Place model - switchable-battery stations, as opposed to battery-refueling stations - and will involve the construction of a Better Place battery switch site in central Tokyo.


Up to four newly modified and fully operational zero-emissions electric taxis will be operated from an existing taxi lane for environmentally-friendly vehicles near the switch site.
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Tags: Batteries, Emissions, Fuel Economy, Japan, Plug-ins and Electric, Better Place, Carbon Dioxide, Electric Taxi, Japan, Plug In EV, Plug-in Electric Vehicle, Zero Emission

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Better Place to Run Test Project in Tokyo for Electric Taxis With Switchable Batteries was originally published by Green Car Advisor. Read the full story by clicking here.