Electric car "charging spots," part of the proposed Better Place mobile operator network. (BetterPlace.com)

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Electric cars have been kicking around the clean-energy conversation for decades, but they’ve been held back by short battery life and limited range.

Tech visionary Shai Agassi thinks he’s got a solution — and sees zero-emission cars hitting Main Streets in just two years.

It’s all about infrastructure: recharging stations and battery replacement bays blanketing the roads. Customers buying miles like cell phone minutes. Some think he’s dreaming — but he’s already got the governments of Israel, Denmark, and Australia signed on.

This hour, On Point: Shai Agassi’s vision for electric cars that go the distance.

You can join the conversation. Can electric cars break our dependence on fossil fuels? Is Shai Agassi dreaming – or really onto something?

Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guest:

Shai Agassi is founder and CEO of Better Place, a green-tech venture that aims to bring electric cars with replaceable batteries to the mass market by 2011.

More links:

“Batteries Not Included” – a profile of Shai Agassi and Better Place in last Sunday’s issue of The New York Times Magazine.

Agassi spoke at the 2009 TED conference. Watch the video here.

It’s a lonely time to be a car salesman.

Auto dealerships are empty all over the country. Many are closing up shop. The big boys are begging for bailouts in Washington. The iron on the lots is not moving.

But over the last century, those showrooms have moved a lot of iron. A lot of cars and dreams, flash and horsepower and sex appeal. A lot of deals.

A colorful new history of the buying and selling of cars in America brings it all back. The rituals. The dickering. The jimmied odometers. And says it all goes back to literal horse trading.

This hour, On Point: It’s time to remember how cars were sold.

You can join the conversation. What’s your best, your worst, story of wheeling and dealing on the showroom floor? Why is buying a car not quite like buying anything else?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Fremont, California, is Steven Gelber, a professor of history at Santa Clara University and author of “Horse Trading in the Age of Cars: Men in the Marketplace.”

And from Versailles, Kentucky, we’re joined by  Jack Kain. He’s the owner of Jack Kain Ford and has been in the auto sales business for over 50 years.  He’s on the board of directors of the National Automobile Dealers Association.