The U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center has released a report that evaluates value-added propositions for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) that might help overcome the initial price premium related to comparable internal combustion engine and hybrid electric vehicles. The report also assesses other non-monetary benefits and barriers related to an emerging PHEV fleet, including environmental, societal, and electric grid impacts.

Image Courtesy: Dept of Energy - Click image to access the entire report



Here is a quick peek into the study’s background, objectives, results and conclusions as shown in the fact sheet:

Results:

Study results indicate that a single PHEV-30 on the road in 2030 will:

• Consume 65% and 75% less gasoline than a comparable HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicle) and ICE (Internal Combustion Engine),  respectively.
• Displace 7.25 and 4.25 barrels of imported oil each year if substituted for equivalent ICEs and HEVs, respectively, assuming 60% of the nation’s oil consumed is imported.
• Reduce net ownership cost over 10 years by 8-10% relative to a comparable ICE and be highly cost competitive with a comparable HEV.
• Use 18-22% less total W2W energy than a comparable ICE, but 8-13% more than a comparable HEV (assuming a 70/30 split of E10 and E85 use in 2030).
• Emit 10% less Well to Wheel (W2W) CO2 than equivalent ICEs in southern California and emits 13% more W2W CO2 than equivalent ICEs in the ECAR region. This also assumes a 70/30 split of E10 and E85 (ethanol blends) use in 2030.

Image Courtesy: Dept of Energy - Click image to access the entire report

Conclusions:

PHEVs and other plug-in vehicles on the road in 2030 may offer many valuable benefits to utilities, business owners, individual consumers, and society as a whole by:

• Promoting national energy security by displacing large volumes of imported oil.
• Supporting a secure economy through the expansion of domestic vehicle and component manufacturing.
• Offsetting the vehicle’s initial price premium with lifetime operating cost savings (e.g., lower fuel and maintenance costs).
• Supporting the use of off-peak renewable energy through smart charging practices. However, smart grid technology is not a prerequisite for realizing the benefits of PHEVs.
• Potentially using its bidirectional electricity flow capability to aid in emergency situations or to help better manage a building’s or entire grid’s load.

PHEVs and other plug-in vehicles still face barriers to commercial acceptance:

• In the near term, the cost of energy storage, charging equipment, and PE&EM components must continue to descend to competitive levels, such as the ones assumed in this study. Industry trends imply that these cost reductions are on track to reach competitive price levels.
• PHEVs’ inability to reduce carbon emissions relative to ICEs unless they are powered primarily by non-carbon energy sources. A grid-connected vehicle’s high dependence on its region’s generation mix is very evident in this study’s findings. Operating in regions with a high percentage of non- or low-carbon energy sources (e.g., renewable, nuclear, and natural gas) would ultimately help improve the long-term environmental impacts of PHEVs.

Note: The Acronym PHEV-30 stands for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle with an All Electric Range (AER) equivalent of 30 miles.

Click here to download/access the entire report (PDF – 218 pages long).

Related articles

• Study Finds Public Policies Needed to Boost EV Fleet Purchases (environmentalleader.com)
• Electric Vehicle Sales in Asia Pacific to Total 1.4 Million by 2015, Forecasts Pike Research (eon.businesswire.com)
• Electrification Coalition Releases Plan for 16M Electric Fleet Vehicles (solarfeeds.com)
• “Plug-in Prius is NOT a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle!” and related posts (hybridcarblog.com)
• Pike survey finds unproven technology and reliability concerns may hinder consumer demand for plug-in electric vehicle, although about 44% of respondents are interested in purchasing one (greencarcongress.com)
• Reportlinker Adds Hybrid Electric Vehicles for Fleet Markets (prnewswire.com)
• 3.2 Million Plug-in Electric Vehicles to be Sold Worldwide by 2015, Forecasts Pike Research (eon.businesswire.com)
• Electrification Coalition releases Fleet Electrification Roadmap; suggests fleet adoption could put a cumulative 200,000 PHEVs and EVs on the road by 2015 (greencarcongress.com)
• Pike forecasts Asia-Pacific to be largest PEV market, with more than 1.2M units by 2015; China to represent 53% of total sales (greencarcongress.com)
• Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts plug-in electric vehicles could account for up to 9% of US auto sales in 2020 and 22% in 2030 (greencarcongress.com)
• J.D. Power forecasts hybrid- and battery-electric vehicles will represent 7.3% of global auto sales in 2020 (greencarcongress.com)
• Hybrid Fleet Vehicle Sales to Surpass 740,000 Units per Year in 2015, According to Pike Research (eon.businesswire.com)
• Plug-In EV Market to Sell 3.2M Units by 2015 (environmentalleader.com)
• BeFrugal.com Proposes Cost Equivalent MPG Calculation for Electric Vehicles (prnewswire.com)

(Source:  Time)

Q’Orianka Kilcher has never pumped a gallon of gasoline into her car. Never. Then again, she’s never owned a car that needed gasoline. You could say she is at ground zero of the ZE, or zero-emission, vehicle future.

A 19-year-old actress living in Santa Monica, Calif. (she played Pocahontas in the 2005 movie The New World), Q’Orianka (pronounced Quor-ee-anka) is on her second hydrogen-fuel-cell car, a Honda FCX Clarity, a four-door with a 200-mile range. “I don’t think I will ever buy a gas car,” she says. “I can go everywhere I want to go with this. Plus, it’s a guy magnet.”

Auto-marketing gurus take note: the brave new world of ZE cars is here, ready or not, and please make them sexy.

“ZEs are an entirely different paradigm,” says Stephen Ellis, manager of fuel-cell-vehicle marketing for American Honda Motor Co. in Torrance, Calif. Ellis manages the rare $600-a-month leases (including free hydrogen fill-ups) for the FCX Clarity. “Knowing how to integrate these new technologies into existing lifestyles and then building new infrastructures to make it work is the trick,” says Ellis. “It took a hundred years to create the gasoline infrastructure; this will be much faster.”

There are three types of zero, or near zero, emission cars: electric plug-ins, hybrid plug-ins and hydrogen fuel cells (which create power by having oxygen and hydrogen pass over electricity-generating electrodes). But each major automaker has its own take on which advanced technology will win 10 years down the road.

Nissan, for example, is pedal-to-the-metal with pure electric cars, having skipped fuel-cell technology altogether. It considers “interim hybrid technology,” like Toyota’s successful Prius, a mere passing phase. “The market-share winner will be the one that offers affordable, mass-market, zero-emission vehicles with a zero payback period for premium technologies,” says Mark Perry, director of the product planning and strategy group for Nissan North America.

In contrast to Nissan, Honda has passed up pure electrics, preferring instead to bank on lower-cost hybrids (Civic and Insight) and hydrogen fuel cells. Ellis, however, claims no distinction should be made between “FCs” and electrics, since a fuel-cell car is basically an electric car powered by hydrogen-created electricity.

Then there is Toyota, the 800-pound hybrid gorilla. Toyota has yet a third route to success: muscling up on its hybrid strength.

“We believe in not being first to market but being best to market,” says Mary Nickerson, who is in charge of advanced-vehicle marketing at Toyota Motor Sales, also in Torrance. Last year, Toyota reached the 1 million sales mark with its Prius hybrid (gas-powered with fuel-saving electric technology).

“Our strategy is to be the hybrid masters, no pure electrics, and to explore fuel-cell technology,” says Nickerson. “We feel it’s going to take a lot more than one technology to make this new market work.”

Some 21% of consumers will not consider a pure electric car because of the need to plug-in at home, according Nickerson. “We believe that 10 years out, the winners will be all new technologies, but hybrids will be the largest winner of them all.”

Then again, as Honda’s Ellis says, “It all depends on the price of gas.”

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source:  Green Car Congress & Synovate)

Market research firm Synovate released new study findings showing that nearly six in ten people would choose to buy a green car over a dream car, even if money was no object. In March 2009, Synovate surveyed more than 13,500 people across 18 markets (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom and the United States of America) about “green” versus “dream” cars, vehicle ownership, intent to buy in the next year and attitudes towards cars, traffic, public transport and their need-for-speed.

The top answer across all 18 markets, if money was no object, was to buy a green car, with 37% of respondents saying this would be their preference. Thirty percent said they would buy their dream car and a further 22% claimed that &ldqou;my dream car is a green car”, meaning that 59%—or very nearly six in ten—showed the desire to go green.

This In:fact survey on cars was conducted in March 2009 across 18 markets - Australia (AU), Brazil (BR), Canada (CA), China (CN), Egypt (EGY), France (FR), Germany (DE), Greece (GR), India (IN), Japan (JP), Korea (KR), Malaysia (MY), South Africa (ZA), Thailand (TH), Turkey (TR), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (US). It covered over 13,200 urban respondents

• The nation most likely to simply elect green car was Germany, with 58% choosing the environment over their dream cars.
• The 30% of people globally who would still choose their dream car, green-be-damned, comprised of 35% men and 27% women.
• The single biggest result for dream car came from South Africa where over half of all respondents (53%) would go for their fantasy vehicle over a green one.
• In the United States (US), 35% would buy a dream car, 23% chose green and 19% say their dream car is a green car. More American women than men say that their dream car is a green car (20% women versus 17% men).
• Overall, 15% of respondents across all 18 markets surveyed, including 9% in the US, say they will buy a new car in the next 12 months. The new car purchase intenders were topped by India at 38% and Egypt at 24%.
• 6% of survey respondents across the 18 markets say they will buy a used car in the next year, including 7% of Americans. 53% would be happy to pay more for a used car if it came with a manufacturer certification and warranty.
• South Africa (18%) as well as the US, Malaysia and Thailand (all 15%) were tops among the households globally in which more than two cars can be found.
• 14% of respondents across the 18 markets say they will use public transport more often in the coming year. The highest level of agreement was in China at 39%. The lowest level of agreement was in the US at 2%.
• 9% of people globally, including 5% of Americans, said they would be riding bikes or walking more often.

Click here to read the entire study.

(Source: Good Magazine)

Amidst the clutter of alternative vehicles that are already in the market and the ones just arriving in the market, how would one decide on the “right” vehicle?  Our savvy folks at Good magazine have published an excellent resource that makes this decision-making process less-complicated and easy to navigate.

Whatever happened to hydrogen?

The idea is great: Take the most abundant element in the universe, turn it silently into electricity, and the only byproduct is a wisp of steam. To its fans, the hydrogen fuel cell is a transportation miracle that will cork our carbon output and curb our addiction to foreign oil. To its critics, it’s vaporware.

(Source: Treehugger)

(Source:  Rocky Mountain Institute Via Tree Hugger)

(Source: Carnegie Mellon University Design Decisions Laboratory)

PITTSBURGH— Carnegie Mellon University professor Jeremy J. Michalek and researchers Dr. Constantine Samaras and C.-S. Norman Shiau report in a new study that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with small battery packs may be the best bet for saving drivers money while addressing U.S. dependency on foreign oil and global warming.

            In an article to appear in the journal Energy Policy, the authors find that urban drivers who can charge their vehicles frequently (every 20 miles or less) can simultaneously reduce petroleum consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and expenses with a plug-in hybrid vehicle whose battery pack is sized for about 7 miles of electric travel per charge. In contrast, plug-in hybrid vehicles with large battery packs – sized for 40 or more miles of electric travel – are too expensive for fuel savings to compensate, even in optimistic scenarios.

            Plug-in hybrid vehicles use charged batteries to propel the vehicle partly using electricity instead of gasoline, which gives them potential to reduce petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. “Larger battery packs allow drivers to go longer distances on electric power. But batteries are heavy and expensive,” says Michalek. “We accounted for the effects of additional batteries on vehicle cost, weight and efficiency in order to understand the net implications on petroleum consumption, cost, and greenhouse gas emissions. Over a range of scenarios — including fluctuating gas prices, new battery technologies or high taxes on carbon dioxide emissions — plug-ins with small battery packs are economically competitive with ordinary hybrid and conventional vehicles for drivers who charge frequently.”

Click here to entire press release.

(Source:  Seattle Times)

Remember last spring, when Seattle’s mayor rolled out the city’s first car that could be “filled at the plug instead of the pump?”

It’s called a plug-in hybrid. They are all the green rage — “possibly the most sought-after technological innovation since Captain Kirk first flipped open his communicator,” says The New York Times.

You may have seen the city’s cars around town, painted with an eye-catching claim on the rear bumper: “This plug-in hybrid gets 100+mpg.”

Also, a greener boast: “150+City MPG!”

Not exactly, it turns out. Not even close.

Try 51 miles per gallon, city and highway combined. Not counting the cost of the electricity.

It’s what 14 plug-in Priuses averaged after driving a total of 17,636 miles. The pilot project is one of the few in the nation to subject plug-in hybrid cars to regular motor-pool duty, as opposed to being driven by hypermilers or alt-energy enthusiasts.

Click here to read the entire article.