Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here.
The innovation and technology for transportation that I want to speak about is the revolution that's taking place on the electric vehicle side, with light-duty vehicles. We're seeing this around the world. Large numbers of models by all different types of auto manufacturers are coming into the market, but we're seeing one big obstacle to mass adoption. We've been with hybrid vehicles for 15 or 20 years, and we're only at about 2% to 3% of each market around the world.
The inherent effectiveness of electric vehicles allows us to move much more rapidly. Of course, it's not something that's going to happen overnight, but in the next 5 to 10 years we can see a mass adoption of 100% electric transportation. The only two barriers are their high cost and their range. We believe the secret to solving both the upfront cost and the range of an electric vehicle is the separation of the battery from the vehicle.
When you look at an electric car and the fuelling infrastructure that surrounds it, and you include a removable battery in that infrastructure, suddenly you get a cost per kilometre that is cheaper than gasoline, you get an unlimited range because of the ability to swap out that battery in less time than it takes to fuel a car, and you get the financial benefit of removing the equivalent of eight years' worth of petrol from the upfront cost. So you get the upfront cost benefit by removing the battery, you get the ongoing mile cost broken down, so it makes sense on an ongoing mile basis, and you get the ability to refuel in less time than it takes to fuel a petrol car.
So how do you put all those pieces together? There are a number of business models out there and companies are working in coalitions with car companies, battery companies, the electric-fuelling infrastructure, and mainstream utilities to put together these systems. It's kind of a chicken and egg situation. Once you put these systems together, where you have the cars, the batteries, and the fuel, which is the electricity, and in Canada it is generated mostly from renewable sources, you can make a huge leap towards a more affordable transportation system. You can have an unlimited and no-compromise system in the light-duty vehicle sector.
I think this is possible. This is a technology that exists today—it is not the technology of the future. We are a company that was founded five years ago. We built two country-wide networks and raised over $800 million in private money. This money was funnelled to countries where the price of petrol is $2 a litre versus $1.40, as I understand it is in Canada. There is a lot of private money that will run after this type of solution and enable this mass adoption, but of course it's going to go where you find the highest level of competition and the highest price of gasoline.
That brings me to my last comment about recommendations. I wanted to leave some time for questions because I know this is a very revolutionary thought. There have been a few years of proof-of-concept countries where you can drive anywhere in the country and you're not paying more for driving on electric. Needless to say, in this type of forum people understand the economic, environmental, and geopolitical implications of moving from a fossil fuel to a locally generated renewable electricity.
The reason that our company, Better Place, has chosen these countries is that they have the biggest return for our private shareholders—$800 million, as I mentioned, of private money from HSBC, Morgan Stanley, and other major financial institutions.
My recommendation to the Canadian government is to look at why the capital flows will go the same as the U.S., why they will flow to countries where there's a higher price on carbon. Even without resetting taxes or carbon prices, there might be ways to offset some of the initial investments that go into these infrastructures, because at the margin, even at $1.40 per litre, this business model is still profitable. The question is, at what decade will the private investors decide to focus their attention on countries that have half the price of gasoline to compete with?
Those are my comments, and I wanted to leave some time for questions.