Transport committee  No, because the switching stations have a reserve of batteries that are fully charged. These batteries will be dispensed. Of course, they will run out, just as in Florida when the hurricane came in: after a while you don't even have liquid fueling stations. The benefit of this type of network approach is that working with Hydro Québec, or PowerStream or Veridian in Toronto—with those types of utilities—you can actually make the grid more stable, because of the buffering of renewable energy and the ability to store, not just balance, load, and generation.

Transport committee  It's $2.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  It's over 1%.

Transport committee  The entire network is privately owned by Better Place. We have 38 battery substations across the country and thousands of level 2 charging stations at people's houses and in the public domain.

Transport committee  It's a little early to turn a profit. As an infrastructure play, there was a heavy investment in the infrastructure. If you look at each one of our miles or kilometres, we're selling at the equivalent of 15¢ or 14¢ a kilometre to consumers. We make a gross margin profit on each one of those kilometres.

Transport committee  I look at California as a better example for Canada than Israel, because everybody says Israel is really a very small country. People mention that the first thing is leadership. In California, the governor set out an executive order saying that he wants 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles—it doesn't matter whether they're from Better Place or whatever car manufacturer—by 2025.

Transport committee  Absolutely. That's exactly why our investors would put that $750 million into countries in Europe. Canada falls quite down the line, and the U.S. is even lower.

Transport committee  That's a great question. This is how we calculate our business and how we make our financial decisions. We can sell an equivalent of a litre at about 85¢ to 90¢; that's a three-and-a-half-dollar gallon. That's the point at which we know we can turn a profit. Of course, the fixed cost of putting in the infrastructure comes into play, so we're going to the markets that have the highest price per litre first.

Transport committee  Yes, but it's much more high-tech, and quicker than in the Canadian Tire example. Technically, we could partner with Canadian Tire and put these stations in those places. The key is that in less than five minutes, end to end, you have another 100 miles. What happens is that you come in to your dealership, you buy your car, as you do a mobile phone, you sign up for the kilometres, and then someone comes to your house and puts in a charging station that fits in with your electrical grid, and that thing fills your car whenever you're sleeping or whenever you're parking.

Transport committee  If you look at Israel, you're talking about 50 to 150 in a given month. But Israel itself has fewer than half the number of cars in the greater Toronto area, for instance.

Transport committee  The answer is, to Better Place, nothing. When I say “nothing”...we've raised $750 million from private equity investments. We got $50 million from the European Investment Bank as a loan. For my operation in North America we did get a few federal and local grants to build pilots, but in the commercial networks that we've launched, out of that $800 million there's been no public money.

Transport committee  Yes, absolutely.

Transport committee  Zero.

Transport committee  They're 100% from private funds.