Shat Agassi wants to make gasoline-powered cars obsolete

23 pages but worth reading—

Wired by way of Truthout:

Shai Agassi has proposed a grand plan to

reinvent the world's automobile.

(Photo: Peter DaSilva / The New York Times)

...At a larger meeting a few weeks later, one of Agassi's lieutenants made the case to dozens of Hawaii's business and political leaders. Like others, Dave Rolf was intrigued. He represents the state's auto dealers, a powerful lobby in the state capitol that's against anything that cuts into car dealer profits. The meeting lasted eight hours, and Rolf left stunned. Not only was this going to happen, he decided, it needed to happen, and Hawaii was the perfect place. He fired off a letter to GM's regional head in California urging the carmaker to pay attention. The auto industry needed to be part of this from the get-go. They needed to be making electric cars. "This is kind of a world-changer," Rolf says.