Wikipedia says that Shai lives in San Francisco. He also became wealthy in the valley.

Better Places is headquartered in Palo Alto.

I remember reading the story a while back and Isreal is just the first place they are running the experiment due to its size and government acceptance to the idea. But the goal is to deploy the cars in as many countries as possible:

"Better Place says it intends to expand into markets where the business model economics and investor returns are “optimized”, citing Europe and Asia specifically. "