Million Vehicles on the Road by 2015
In accordance with New Energy Policy, President Barack Obama announced a $2.4-billion competitive grant program to make the electric vehicles more widely available.
On the second day of his tour of Southern California, President Obama highlighted his environmental jobs agenda with a visit to an electric-vehicle testing facility in Pomona, where he announced a $2.4-billion competitive grant program to make the electric vehicles more widely available.
In his low-key speech before about 100 Edison employees and students from nearby Village Academy High School, Obama highlighted his recovery plan, which he says would create 400,000 jobs in California, and expressed concern about the "devastating impact" of the foreclosure crisis on the state.
But he focused primarily on his proposals to create new jobs in green technologies and to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, noting that the U.S. is importing more oil than it was on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Even as our economy has been transformed by new forms of technology, our electric grid looks largely the same as it did half a century ago," Obama said. "So we have a choice to make. We can remain one of the world’s leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that would allow us to become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy."
The president renewed his commitment to doubling the country’s supply of renewable energy over the next few years — including spending $11 billion upgrading the nation’s power grid to ease the delivery of renewable energy across the country, and $15 million to help develop green technologies such as solar and wind power, and new coal technologies.
As a receptive audience of engineers and workers cheered his plans, Obama pledged to put a million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015, and highlighted his offer of up to $7,500 in tax credits for Americans who purchase electric vehicles.
The new $2.4-billion grant program, which would be part of his recovery program, would ask companies to compete for federal money to increase the manufacturing of batteries and parts used in the electric cars.
Before speaking to the crowd gathered on the factory floor of the Electric Vehicle Technical Center this morning, the president spent about 20 minutes touring the facility with Edison International’s CEO and a top engineer.
After viewing the company’s model for a "garage of the future" — where an electric car battery would be charged each night with energy drawn from solar panels on the garage roof — Obama toured the battery-testing center and questioned engineers about what government could do to help advance the technologies.
New Era of Electric Cars
We must prepare now for the electric car, though the main incentives has suddenly disappeared — the high price of gasoline! The London Free Press reported.
Here comes the electric car, but will motorists buy it?
It seems the consensus from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week is that the future of the automobile is electric. Almost all the manufacturers had a hybrid or all-electric car, among them Toyota’s popular Prius and GM’s plug-in hybrid, the Chevrolet Volt, due in 2010.
Yesterday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said a California-based company’s plans to set up in Toronto is a recognition that we’re entering a new era of electric cars on the province’s highways.
Better Place, a company from Palo Alto, Calif., will open a Canadian office in Toronto and build an automobile demonstration and education centre there. The company has worldwide plans for recharging stations on highways for electric cars.
McGuinty said the province is solidly behind it, despite being vague about how much money Ontario is prepared to invest to build facilities and encourage manufacturers. He said the government will release a study this spring examining how to speed up the introduction of electric vehicles, which will include incentives for buyers.
But one of the biggest incentives has suddenly disappeared — the high price of gasoline.
Despite demands by lawmakers on both sides of the border that automakers, especially the Detroit Three, must concentrate more on hybrids and fuel efficiency and less on pickup trucks and SUVs, too many motorists will only buy electric or hybrid cars if the price is right.
And the price won’t be right unless gasoline starts soaring again. Automakers are caught in a catch-22. The price of hybrids and electric cars will remain high until motorists buy more of them, and motorists won’t buy them unless the price of gasoline goes higher. Automakers have surely helped with the marketing, but the public clearly wants big vehicles that guzzle gasoline.
The only thing we can be assured of is the price of gasoline will indeed go up. And it will go far higher than we could even have imagined last summer.
So the only thing governments, automakers and motorists can do is to prepare as best we can before it’s too late.
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Public Charging Station in San Jose
Note: New Electric Car Charging Station Unveiled In SJ, cbs5.com reports in Jan 6, 2009. It is a good news for electric cars fans.
SAN JOSE (BCN) ―San Jose officials debuted Tuesday the city’s first public charging station for electric cars in hopes that residents will embrace electric vehicles’ cleaner technology.
For residents to truly consider buying and driving an electric car, "plugging them in at home is not enough," San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed said at the unveiling of the station Tuesday afternoon. Three new charging stations are now open to the public on Fourth Street across from City Hall. Two more are available in the nearby Fourth Street Parking Garage and the city plans to add one more to both locations soon.
San Jose developed the stations in partnership with Campbell-based Coulomb Technologies. The slim kiosks draw power from an ordinary streetlight and can charge electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.
The stations also mark the first public availability of Coulomb’s ChargePoint Network. Anyone who drives plug-in vehicles can register with the network and use a swipe card to power their cars. Users can register for different access plans depending on their need.
Richard Lowenthal, Coulumb Technologies CEO, said city engineers helped design the light pole-powered kiosks, known as Smartlet stations. The company donated the equipment to San Jose and the city supplied installation labor.
"We want you, when you are making your next car buying decision, to think about electric cars," he said.
According to Lowenthal, each trip in a plug-in car saves 7 pounds of greenhouse gases. Driving that car for a year saves more than a ton.
San Jose hopes to expand the stations across the city and Coulomb wants to see more throughout the region, but both groups must first monitor the success of these first Smartlet stations, said Jim Helmer, the city’s transportation director. The public-private partnership allows Coulomb to develop and test its product in a public forum and helps San Jose support its commitment to making the city a "green mobility showcase," Helmer said.
A new sign posted across from City Hall proclaims this stretch of Fourth Street is for "electric vehicle parking only." A Tesla electric convertible was on hand for demonstrations, as well as several Toyota Priuses converted to run on electricity as well as gas.
According to Pat Cadam, whose San Francisco company Green Gears converts hybrid cars to use plug-in technology, a plug-in hybrid can get 100 miles to the gallon if a driver stays within a 40-mile range. After that, the engine reverts to the traditional hybrid performance.
While it’s difficult to estimate how many area residents own electric-powered cars, Cadam said many of his customers are two-car families who also own a vehicle suitable for longer drives.
Cadam called the current vehicles "a behavior-changing technology," helping acclimate Americans to the idea of an electric car, as the technology improves and becomes more prevalent. The major limitation right now, Cadam said, is the lack of charging stations. Cadam said only one out of every six electric car owners in San Francisco has a place to plug in at night.
In November, Reed joined the mayors of San Francisco and Oakland to announce a collaboration to encourage electric car use throughout the Bay Area.
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