Electric car project gets $100m boost

For tech execs, it seems like electric cars are an ideal way to fill one’s time once you’ve made a small fortune elsewhere. Elon Musk took his PayPal payout to kick-start Tesla Motors, and now a former SAP exec is involved with an electric car venture.

Shai Agassi left SAP earlier this year to pursue interests in environmental policy and alternative energy–seemingly in the form of an electric car. By all accounts, it’s off to a strong start, from a funding point of view anyway. Israel Corp just gave it a $100m funding shot-in-the-arm to take a 33% stake in the business.

And he’s pretty sure that it’s a sound bet. Check out this speech he gave a couple months back:

You have to know one thing. The total cost of ownership of an electric vehicle crossed under the total cost of ownership for a fuel-based car a year ago. It’s really hard to notice because most people do not see total cost of ownership. But once that has happened, it’s just a question of amortizations and monetization ways. To create a financial model that actually works.