This article came out today.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

New study: Plug-in hybrid vehicles can have major impact on emissions and petroleum dependency


Jul 19 2007 9:50AM

Gasoline prices have soared, greenhouse gas emission are an environmental concerns, and particulate emissions continue to have a health impact – it’s clear that even 5 years from now the profile our currently almost exclusively-gas-powered automobile-based transportation system must change. Government regulations no less than public concern of foreign oil dependency will demand it. One possible scenario has the US public switching to plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) – that is, cars that rely on a battery with a range of 40-70 miles for their usual daily commute, but with a small engine that can power the battery for an extended range. But do PHEVs just shift the pollution and fuel used to the nation’s electrical grid?

A study by Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) asked the question, “How would air quality and greenhouse gas emissions be affected if significant numbers of Americans drove cars that were fueled by the power grid?” The report Environmental Assessment of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles was released this morning and concludes basically that PHEVs and the grid – both as the grid exists now, and what it will evolve to by 2050 – will work very well together, with the adoption of PHEVs reducing US dependence on petroleum by 90%, and reducing greenhouse emissions by 80%. What other technology can offer such a clear path to energy independence and a lighter carbon footprint?

In the Q&A session that followed the introduction the questions was raised about the viability of PHEVs themselves, since it’s widely known that no battery exists today that can meet the safety and durability requirements of combined deep-cycling of the battery over 100,000 miles. There were representatives there from General Motors and Edison International who said that the history of battery development is that new battery technologies consistently exceed their initial expectations. For example, a battery built by a partnership of SAFT and Johnson Controls has demonstrated the equivalent of 7 years of deep-cycling with a capacity loss of only 6-7%. (I’m not going out on much of a limb to assume that it’s lithium ion.) And the Edison guy said the Edison lab has a Toyota RAV4-EV that has well over 100K miles on it. (RAV4s used NiMH.) So in this group anyway they are assuming enabling battery technology will happen.