Better Place gets $50 million loan from European Investment Bank

Better Place gets $50 million loan from European Investment Bank:
Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, Europe/EU, Middle East, Better Place




Things just got a little better for Better Place.



The electric-vehicle battery-swapping company said Tuesday that it received a 40-million euro (U.S. $50 million) loan from the European Investment Bank, marking the company's first credit line after raising all of its existing funding in the form of equity.



Better Place will use most of the funds to expand its battery-swapping network throughout Denmark and will use the remaining money to do the same in Israel. Founder Shai Agassi said that the funding will get Better Place a step closer to building out a charging "corridor" between Copenhagen and Paris in which EV drivers will be able to swap batteries all along the 750-mile drive.



Better Place said in January that it had raised about $750 million in funding since being founded in 2007. In February, Bloomberg News reported that Better Place would likely go public within two years in expectations that funding opportunities would increase as EVs become more prevalent.



Earlier this summer, Better Place said its vehicles had been driven over a million kilometers (625,000 miles) through standard recharging and by using battery-swapping stations in Israel and Denmark. At the time, the company, which uses Renault Z.E. EVs for the testing process, was operating about 55 switching stations in Denmark and Israel and had processed about 15,000 battery swaps.
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Better Place gets $50 million loan from European Investment Bank originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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