Palo Alto’s Better Place company has vowed to bring a $1 billion electric vehicle grid to the Bay Area, California. The company has already set up similar grids in Australia, Denmark and Israel.

The plan has just been endorsed by the San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco mayors. They’ve also agreed to offer incentives to companies that install plug-in stations. The plan will result in 250,000 charging ports, 200 battery-swap stations and a driver service center. Everything should be up and running by 2012. Network planning and permitting will begin in earnest next year and infrastructure deployment will kickoff in 2010.

Here is how it is planned to work: You will receive a discounted price on an electric vehicle when you subscribe to drive a certain number of miles. Better Place will own the batteries. You’ll be, in a sense, renting. This will be America’s first infrastructure of the sort.

Watch the inspirational video below from Better Place to get excited about shedding your old-fangled gas guzzler:

Tesla Motors has been promised $40 million in financing in order to avoid bankruptcy and insolvency. The electric car manufacturer has had a tough couple of months. First, there was a pretty huge round of layoffs and then their Detroit office closed down. So, any good news is a welcome change of pace.

Elon Musk, the owner of the company, admitted just a few weeks ago that Tesla Motors had as little as $9 million in the bank, so this new investment will go a long way to making sure orders get filled and employees get paid. Here is to hoping they see brighter days in the future.

Audi has announced another green vehicle based on it’s A1 hybrid concept. The five-door A1 Sportback will go from 0-62 MPH in 7.9 seconds, reach a top speed of 124 MPH and manage up to 72.4 miles from a gallon of fuel. The vehicle will also take you more than 60 miles on just one charge. There’s also an adjustable drivetrain / drive shaft / shock absorber system, which allows drivers to choose between two modes: sport mode (for better acceleration) and efficiency mode. The latter takes your route and altitude into consideration when managing the on-board navigation system.

The A1 also allows certain cellphones to act as a mobile control unit for WLAN access and a series of other functions. Click the link for more photos and information.

Tesla has revealed a finalized photo of their 4-door, all-electric Model S sports sedan, shown above. The car was designed completely by Tesla and will get around 240 miles per charge. It will also go from zero to sixty in approximately six seconds. The Model S will be released sometime in 2010 and will cost about $60,000.

Click this link to read a writeup about the car from Road & Track Magazine.

Australia, location for the classic film "Kangaroo Jack", is building over 600,000 electric car stations. This gigantic ongoing infrastructure project won’t be done until 2012, at which time Australia will point and laugh at us Americans as we wait angrily at ever-increasing gas lines. Don’t worry, we’ll deserve it.

Most of the stations will be spread out to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. A paltry 150 stations will be spread out to outlying areas of the country. The outback may produce great steaks, but your car will run out of juice there.

There will also be battery swap stations scattered about, where drivers can trade junked juice for the new stuff.

This is pretty great news for the land downunder. However, it’s not all rosy. The government is suggesting contracts to use the stations be instituted. These contracts resemble cell phone plans. Don’t they know not to make Australians angry? Come on, we’ve all seen Crocodile Dundee 2 haven’t we?

Click the link for the AP article.