DOE to Invest up to $20 Million for Plug-In Hybrid Research:
DOE announced on September 25th that it will invest nearly $20 million in plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) research. PHEVs have the potential to displace a large amount of gasoline by delivering up to 40 miles of electric range without recharging—a distance that includes most daily roundtrip commutes. Five projects will be cost-shared with the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), allowing up to $38 million for battery research and development. The companies selected for the projects include EnerDel, Inc. in Indiana; A123Systems in Massachusetts; Compact Power Inc. in Michigan; 3M in Minnesota; and Johnson Controls – Saft Advanced Power Solutions in Wisconsin. The projects will focus on developing batteries and cells for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs and building small cells to test new cathode materials.
In addition, the University of Michigan will receive nearly $2 million to explore the future of PHEVs in a two-year study conducted with DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and DTE Energy. The study will evaluate how PHEVs would share the power grid with other energy needs; monitor the American public’s view of PHEVs and their driving behavior in such vehicles; assess the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; and identify how automakers can optimize PHEV design to increase performance and reduce cost. See the DOE press release, the PNNL press Release, and the Draft Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle R&D Plan on the FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies Program Web site.
A number of other efforts are also aiming to advance PHEV technologies. In early September, Google.org—the philanthropic arm of Google Inc.—offered $10 million to for-profit companies that are working to advance PHEV technologies. Meanwhile, California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced that it is working with Tesla Motors to study the remote control of the charging of electric vehicles. Such “smart charging” could allow a utility to vary the electric charging load on its system in response to intermittent energy sources. In effect, electric vehicles would serve as a large energy storage system that utilities could direct energy to at times when ample supplies are available and the load on the electrical grid is low. See the Google.org and PG&E press releases.
$20 million? Really? Is that one full crumb from the US federal budget, or are we still in the sub-crumb range?
Please forgive my sarcasm, but this is pathetic. Given the enormous potential for plug-ins and EV’s to change the rules of the game, and how utterly dependent on batteries those developments are, this funding is laughably low. Add at least two zeros to the end of that number, and it might be where it should be.
The TWIP is out. US crude oil stockpiles rose 1.8 million barrels, while US gasoline stockpiles rose by 0.6 million barrels. As in recent weeks, the gasoline number is much more important, simply because those stocks are so low right now. The modest growth in gasoline stocks is good news, or at least not bad news.
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September 26th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I agree that $20 million doesn’t sound like much. Apparently this USABC consortium will double it. It’s not quite “twice nothin’ is still nothin’” but in the big picture it’s not a lot of man-years.
There’s no particular reason why all such funding has to be by the government. Traditionally government funds should be for basic research and long-term R&D that is beyond the planning horizon of private industry. I think we’re well beyond that point when we talk about batteries for EVs now. I would expect therefore that GM, Toyota, Honda and other companies are investing amounts that will dwarf $20 or even $40 million.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
$20 million is ~1% of the typical recent DOE energy budget of $1.4 billion.
September 26th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Here’s some rather discouraging news: the Tesla electric car, which had been promised for delivery in 2007, is having production delayed until 2008:
http://www.autoblog.com/2007/09/25/tesla-roadster-deliveries-pushed-back-to-2008-245-mile-range-co/
This will undoubtedly delay their work on the next vehicle, supposed to be a mass market car with seats for four and an affordable price. Originally that had been set for 2009 (2010 model year) but I doubt we will see it that soon based on this news.
September 26th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
C’mon Lou,
Did you think they were actually serious about reducing transportation energy requirements?
We spend more in one hour in Iraq. ~$500 million/day (15% of our $630Billion/yr military budget plus the $100 billion supplemental gets us to over $180 B/year) to effectively shoot ourselves in the foot.
*Sighs* At least someone at DOE has learned that PHEVs exist and has decided to do some research.
September 26th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Perhaps the Powers That Be can see that the EV is a no-braainer and tht if they provide seed money, the whole concept will take off and be hugely successful. We can only nope that this is the case, since there seem to be no other practical options.