While most of us who could afford an electric car are being handed pink slips, San Francisco and other Bay Area cities announced plans yesterday to make the Bay Ara the electric car capital of the world!

In partnership with a Palo Alto start-up called Better Place, whose plans is to coat the entire Bay Area with electric-vehicle charging stations by 2012, the idea is to make using and refueling electric vehicles as practical as gasoline cars.

In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom said the city will use tax breaks to promote sales of electric vehicles and encourage homes and businesses to make charging stations widely available. The city will also look at ways to speed up the permitting process to install charging outlets at homes and businesses.

Newsom says explains, "I don't believe halfway is good enough. I'm a guy driving a hybrid (vehicle) and I don't feel too good about that. For us to get to the next level, we need unprecedented regional collaboration."

While Better Place has already proven successful in quainter places like Israel, Denmark and Australia, this system will be the first of its kind in the United States. Oh, and Bay Area environmental leaders are saying that a $1 billion investment is necessary to get the whole thing up and running.