Ziv-Av Engineering (ZAE) is taking the quick-change technology for replacing batteries in electric vehicles, pioneered by Shai Agassi's failed Better Place venture, to China. Over the weekend, the Israeli engineering company signed an agreement in a festive ceremony with China's Bustil to design battery-changing stations for a fleet of buses operating in Nanjing, near Shanghai. Amir Ziv-Av, the firm's founder and a former chief scientist in the Transportation Ministry, helped design Better Place's changing stations, which mimic how robots install fuel tanks and missiles onto fighter jets quickly. Unlike the Better Place stations, the Nanjing ones won't be entirely automated and won't involve any underground construction, in order to save costs. The goal is to be able to switch a bus' 7-9 batteries in just a few minutes.