At this point, most of us have heard of Better Place and their battery swap station idea, but they aren’t the only ones who’ve though of such a thing. NuTech, a company I recently discovered at the Alt Car Expo in Santa Monica, CA, has developed their own take on the concept of drive-thru battery swap stations… only theirs is portable.

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Less than a week after switchable EV battery pioneer Better Place announced a newly expanded agreement with French car maker Renault, the company’s founder and CEO, Shai Agassi appeared as a guest on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report in hopes of getting that sought-after ‘Colbert Bump’.

The Colbert Bump, as it is known, is a phenomenon wherein people (places, companies, ideas) that appear on the Colbert Report receive a sudden boost in popularity for their cause.

The deal announced by Agassi in Frankfurt builds on an agreement reached between the two companies in August and will be to install the Better Place battery system (and build-out the charging network) for the Renault Fluence ZE for sale in Israel and Denmark. The Fluence ZE was one of four models in Renault’s new line of electric cars unveiled last week at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

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Better Place, based in Palo Alto, California, has gotten the green light from the Japanese government to move forward on installing its battery swap stations for use by Tokyo’s taxi fleet. The company said it has received an undisclosed financial investment from the Japanese government for its “Tokyo pilot project,” which is intended to validate the feasibility of the battery swap stations by installing switchable batteries into the world’s first four completely electric taxis.

According to the company, they will partner with Tokyo’s largest taxi operator, Nihon Kotsu, for the project that was commissioned by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s Natural Resources and Energy Agency. The project is slated to begin in January 2010 and is a direct result of the successful battery switch demonstration earlier this year in Yokohama.

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Project Better Place, the brainchild of entrepreneur and CEO Shai Agassi, in partnership with French automaker Renault, is an increasingly popular electric car service model that looks to the “service station” concept for electric cars. By developing an infrastructure of “swap stations,” drivers can swap discharged batteries in their electric cars in little more than five minutes, and be on their way. Pilot projects are already underway across the globe, including Denmark, Israel, Japan, Hawaii, California, and Australia.

Renault and Better Place announced this week plans sell up to 160,000 electric cars annually throughout Denmark and Israel starting in 2011.

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Within 20 years, 86 percent of light-vehicles sold in the U.S. could be electric vehicles; but only by following this prescription.

A U.C. Berkeley study found that Americans want something like their cell phone plan for electric cars. If they don’t have to worry about their batteries, then most Americans would prefer electric cars.

If the customer is always right, then more of the automakers planning electric cars should be looking at battery leasing; with battery swaps available for long-distance travel. Customers would own the car, but pay a per-mile charge to lease the battery.

Here’s how this would make EVs cheaper than gasoline cars:

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With over 1.3 billion people, it is no wonder that China is the “tipping point” when it comes to electric vehicles (EV). At least that’s what Better Place CEO Shai Agassi says.

Better Place, a venture-backed company that aims to reduce global dependency on oil, doesn’t sell cars but infrastructure. The company recently unveiled a battery swap system in Tokyo that makes refueling an EV easier than filling up at the pump. The $500,000 station allows drivers to travel long distances without having to stop to charge their battery, eliminating EV’s ever present “range anxiety.” Batteries are quickly and easily swapped out so drivers can get back on the road.

But infrastructure is just part of the picture, and Agassi says that China is taking steps toward green-lighting electric cars in a big way. “Once China does it, you don’t have a choice,” Agassi said.

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[UPDATE]: Video of the switching station in action and photos added below.

YOKOHAMA, JAPAN- Last night at approximately 10:30 PM PST (1:30 AM EST), electric vehicle services provider Better Place will demonstrate key elements of their battery switching station technology. This is the first public exhibition of a battery switching station—which Better Place lauds as the final piece of a “total electric vehicle solution.” The company was invited by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment to set up an exhibit in Yokohama.

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“Range anxiety,” as it’s called, describes the most fundamental fear expressed by would-be adopters of electric vehicles. It’s no different than the fear of driving through sparsley inhabited parts of the United States, where it’s important to know your car’s mileage and the distance to the next gas station.

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If you missed the discussion last week, we had the Mayors of two major cities—San Francisco and Portland—weighing in on electric vehicle charging infrastructure. In the coming weeks, we’re looking forward to hearing from other cities about their plans for EV infrastructure, but we also wanted to make sure the private sector had a chance to chime in.

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Editor’s Note: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has written an exclusive guest post on this topic here on Gas 2.0 earlier this same day. 

At approximately 10:00 AM PST today, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom will announce the installation of three electric vehicle charging stations in front of City Hall. The stations will be used by plug-in electric vehicles already in San Francisco’s municipal fleet, along with plug-in electric hybrids owned by car-sharing organizations City CarShare and Zipcar.

The charging stations were provided for a two-year public demonstration by “Smartlet” manufacturer Coulomb Technologies—one of the few companies vying for primacy in the business of building or supplying EV charging stations.

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At the Washington Auto Show, the troubled automaker said it will collaborate with San Francisco and Washington D.C. to ensure that the proper policies and infrastructure are in place for the time when plug-ins such as the Volt start hitting the streets.

GM says it will work with everyone from governments to utilities to permitting and codes officials to prep for the launch. Among the challenges that need to be tackled, GM says, are consumer incentives, charging infrastructure and the codes and permits to allow charging stations to be installed, commercial and government fleet purchases, and utility rates that encourage plug-in use.

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• Over in Dallas, for instance, officials and urban designers are gathering today for an all-day “charrette” (or brainstorming session) to figure out what it would take to create a fully sustainable city block. They hope to follow up their meeting with an international competition to design just such a thing. (You can read more here (PDF)).

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While California plans to use the same company, Better Place, to build a limited number of stations, Better Place will have some 50,000 to 100,000 spots to charge electric cars in Hawaii by 2011. The company will also buy renewable energy from Hawaii’s largest electricity company.

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Better Place and Hawaii have joined forces. This week the State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company endorsed a plan to build a new renewable transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and a “smart” battery recharging network.

The Better Place plan solves the current problem with electric cars, which is slow battery recharging as well as availability. The solution is to use existing electric car technologies together with an internet-connected web of recharging stations (set up in the thousands).

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Shai Agassi founded Better Place in October of 2007 with $200 million in venture capital. The vision of Better Place is to reduce global dependency on oil by creating a market-based transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles and renewable energy.

Within the first six months of its founding, Better Place forged cooperative agreements  with business and government in Israel and Denmark, most recently announcing a deal to bring Better Place to Australia. And with today’s announcement the electric car infrastructure model is set to come to California, starting in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has received a glut of media attention recently for his plan to develop the largest wind power project in the world. Now the New York Times suggests that Pickens might have a visionary counterpart in Shai Agassi, an Israeli software entrepreneur obsessed with making Israel the world leader in electric cars.

Agassi, along with his company Better Place, have an Israeli government-backed plan to create an electric car program that will give subscribers access to a car, a battery, and outlets across Israel. Subscribers will also be able to swap dead batteries for fresh ones in designated garages.

Better Place will run the smart grid that charges the electric cars. The company is also currently contracting for enough solar energy energy to power the whole fleet, which will roll out next year with 500 cars built by Renault.

But Agassi’s vision doesn’t end with Israeli electric cars.

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