Wow, I didn't know that story.

Their idea wasn't really right, so I'm not sure why you are saying that. In fact, it seems to me their idea was absolutely and totally wrong, now and then. Its not at all what oil companies are doing.

Tesla has clearly shown that a charging network doesn't make nearly enough money to subsidies cars. In fact the opposite is true, car sales finance the charging network.

Battery swapping, out-side of a single luxury brand in China has also seen very little adoption. So that part of the idea was also wrong.

Seem like 'Better Place' was literally getting everything thing possible wrong.

Well, with the benefit of hindsight you are correct, however in 2005 things may have looked a bit different to them but I think the bigger point here is that having a $900M budget for charging stations today is a much better fit than it was when they got funded.

Had they actually focused on charging station and not bringing a car to market and battery swapping, they could have had much more success and wouldn't need $900M.