China’s Expressway Dilemma and the Solution – Part 2/2

August 10, 2011

One element of China’s plan is to not become addicted to foreign oil as the U.S. already has and one-step toward achieving this goal led China to become a partner with Shai Agassi and Better Place — something Washington D.C. has not done.

Time and Foreign Policy magazines recently named Shai Agassi as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.  The reason is that Agassi, an entrepreneur from California, launched a company called Better Place.

Deutsche Bank analysts may have already concluded that the Better Place’s approach to end global “oil” addiction could be a “paradigm shift” that causes “massive disruption” to the auto industry, and has “the potential to eliminate the gasoline engine altogether”.

To achieve a world free of a dependency on oil, Better Place has already partnered with California, Hawaii and Canada, while globally, Better Place is working with Australia, China, Denmark, Israel, Japan and the European Union.

On June 18, 2011, Better Place unveiled Europe’s first battery switching station in Denmark, and you may have noticed that China, as one of Better Place’s partners, is positioning itself to save China from the same fate that has already happened to politically gridlocked Washington D.C.

The station in Denmark, which show cased the company’s battery switching technology, is the first of 20 battery switching stations to be deployed across Denmark over the next nine months.

In the next few years, if successful, Better Place may lower the cost of driving significantly and break big oil’s monopoly on the economies of the world while lowering the cost of cars worldwide by providing an affordable, convenient and sustainable system through a revolutionary switchable battery model.

This means that instead of filling up with gas when the tank is empty, a driver pulls into a Better Place switching station and swaps battery packs in less time than it takes to wait in line and fill a tank with gasoline or diesel.

Return to or start with China’s Expressway Dilemma and the Solution – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

7 Comments | America, business, capitalism, China, Chinese middle class, economy, environment, government, politics, science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Expressway Dilemma and the Solution – Part 1/2

August 9, 2011

China may not know what it is getting itself into by copying the U.S. as far as linking all of its cities with Expressways.

About a year and a half ago, Shanghaiist reported that China had more than doubled the length of China’s expressway system.  Shanghaiist said, “It’s so long, in fact, that it should soon overtake the interstate highway system of the United tates as the world’s longest.”

China’s road building frenzy is linked to the same goal that includes having a population ratio between urban and rural areas that already exists in Europe and the US, which may create the largest consumer driven middle class in the world.

In addition, there is the parallel frenzy of multinational fast food corporations such as McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and KFC opening thousands of fast food outlets in China.

In fact, China is quickly becoming another automobile, consumer driven culture similar to the United States, but it may not be a good idea to become a duplicate copy of the U.S.


China has a plan but the United States does not.

If you click on this link and study the chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, you will discover what China’s future fate may be and that fate, if it becomes a fact, will lead China into wars such as the two the US is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Due to U.S. imports of crude oil and petroleum products, America’s national interest and economy are linked to countries that supply oil to the US.

In January 2010, the Center for American Progress reported that Oil Dependence is a Dangerous Habit, and said, “The United States is spending approximately $1 billion a day overseas on oil instead of investing the funds at home, where our economy sorely needs it. Burning oil that exacerbates global warming also poses serious threats to our national security and the world’s security.”

Yet, there is little to no sign that the U.S. government is moving to break its addiction to foreign oil. Instead, the partnership between America’s federal government and big oil appears stronger than ever.

If China continues down the same expressway toward a consumer car culture that mimics the US, it too may face a similar fate with a middle class addicted to gas and diesel powered cars and trucks.

However, Shai Agassi’s Better Place, a company that had its start in California, offers a solution.

Continued on August 9, 2011 in China’s Expressway Dilemma and the Solution – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

3 Comments | America, business, capitalism, China, economy, environment, government, politics, science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse