I could attempt to beat this on a public road today with my own electric Renault Fluence ZE. The average speed is a touch daunting at 41MPH which is 67kmh and the speed limits here in Israel are 90 to 100km. My issue would be traffic. There is largely traffic free a toll road I could use but that would cost me a fortune!

All I would have to do is shuttle 16 times between two battery switch stations, pausing only for 5 mins to switch battery. I dare say the staff would let me get out of my car to pee while the battery switched (not normal practice :-)

Before the summer is out, and when I can do this without just shuttling between two end points (i.e. drive top to bottom of Israel twice) I'll be close to this record without a test track, constant speed and other ideal conditions.

I'm not sure I'd get much help from Better Place: they probably don't want to piss off Renault by breaking their records quite easily without ideal sterile conditions like driving to nearly empty at a constant speed!

I've written quite a bit on my blog and a couple of other right leaning conservative sites in the US.

Best place to start: http://www.israellycool.com/tag/better-place/

They have delivered a few cars (not sure how many but probably less than 20) to customers. I know a couple (english speaking ones) on Twitter. At least 80 employees have been driving them since January.

They've sold more than 300 to private customers (like me) because they had a special sign up process for those and all the slots are gone. However the big numbers will come from fleet buyers and they've announced deals with most of the major ones. Private purchase of a car here is the minority.

The battery switch stations are not open yet. Many of them are built and I've run through one in a test car: drove there in a demo car but had to switch to one of the test cars at the station because they don't wan the test batteries getting out! The stations should be ready in June and I think they will start with 40. That's probably enough but I've heard 60 is the goal. People who take a car now have to realise they're stuck in their "island".

There are plenty of public charge spots in malls and so on though so, at a push, I probably could get to Jerusalem and back if I found a charge spot to use for 3 or 4 hours. It's downhill mostly from J to Tel Aviv where I am!

They are busy installing charge points in customers homes. This is usually a bit tricky as most people live in apartment buildings so permissions are a problem. It's hard to explain that no communal electricity will be taken for the car as BP install their own meter. My own spot is on the wall but waiting for the installation of a new meter.

Happy to talk about this! Go visit Israellycool or follow me on twitter: @brianoflondon

I am buying the car and 4 years worth of all the electricity and batteries I need at a fixed price with a loan (at a very competitive rate). As far as I know car's are always negative equity because they're always worth less every day that passes. You can't expect capital appreciation on a car. All you can hope is that there is some value left in the thing by the time you've paid off the loan.

I'm in Israel: sorry, should have mentioned that. The "of London" in my name is past tense!

Battery. It's all about the battery cost and life. If private individuals have to pay for the battery and it's depreciation over the next few years, all the valid gains Robert talk about are wiped out. Note the ancient car given in the example has had it's battery system completely replaced!

What happens when you try to sell a Leaf in 3 years and a brand new Leaf is getting 30% or more range than yours.

Batteries depreciate for two reasons: first they do have a limited life and second there is continuous (if mostly fairly slow) improvement in their design. Both these things give uncertainty and as the battery (for an end user) is the largest value part of the car, this more than wipes out service cost decreases.

And those other ancillary service items like A/C filters and all the rest will mean regular services are required. I agree the time and parts will be less for sure but whether this is enough to balance I'm not sure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan, my first EV will be with me in a month or so but I'm not buying a battery, I'm leasing that for exactly the reasons above. The cost vs petrol will be lower, but by a reasonable 15% to 25% I reckon: Better Place can have the rest as a profit. After all, I need them to succeed because if they don't I've bought a very expensive EV without a battery!

Wishing long life for his family and condolences.

I don't think a law firm in the UK taking this to court was acting in the best interests of their client. Top Gear often departs from reality and veers into satire and its regular viewers know this. That is why the "old" Top Gear of beards and compression ratios was so mind-numbingly dull compared to what it has become today. To sue that for accuracy is just plain dumb and you shouldn't need a law degree to work that out.

Write a blog post, send an op-ed to The Guardian, but don't waste everybody's time going to court. Dumb. I'm with Tesla all the way on the batteries, but this was a very stupid move.

Apparently, the Oxford Union operate in a timewarp that prevents all modern recording devices from working. Pity, I'd have liked to watch the whole thing too!

Fast charging (in situ) is a huge problem: when Better Place charge batteries outside the cars they are first cooled to 5C and kept there during the charge process. You can't do this inside a car.

My understanding is that all the current Renault EVs (ZE) are built with battery switching in mind. As and when this car comes to Israel I suspect it will be a huge hit.

I've actually got a Roku box on route to Israel to watch Beck on so I'm glad I'll be able to see if the Boxee box I've already got works here. I'm sure the Roku will find a happy home with a friend if Boxee works.

GBTV already has a massive subscriber base and Boxee would be mad to listen to the nutty nay sayers and let ideology control their platform. Well done.