Analysis / The state is betting on Agassi - Haaretz

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Mon., November 12, 2007 Kislev 2, 5768

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Analysis / The state is betting on Agassi

By Yoav Kaveh

tags: Shai Agassi, Idan Ofer

The cabinet's announcement to back the electric car project will be phrased in general terms and will include only principles, but it will be clear to everyone that they really mean to support Shai Agassi's project directly. Or perhaps better to call it Agassi's dream.

Agassi has a vision of ending our dependency on oil, of non-polluting transport, of solar energy. He is dreaming of a revolution on a global scale.

But will his dream actually take to the road?

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The wunderkind of the high-tech world certainly succeeded in electrifying the government and achieving state support in less than two weeks. "Agassi presented us with his ambitious plan. If another person had presented us with a similar plan, we would have thought he was crazy and thrown him out," said a senior government official. "But this was Agassi. He is a young man with an impressive record who knows how to reach the highest people directly and convince them."

The Ofers and their Israel Corporation are also involved in the project, and they also know how to open government officials' doors.

This will be Agassi's last project: If it succeeds he will never need to raise money again, and if it fails he will never be able to raise money again. If within a decade we can stop breathing exhaust fumes then we should give him a couple of Nobel Prizes. If he fails - and remember there are a huge number of technological, bureaucratic and other problems - he will have to eat his hat. And so will the Israeli government.

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