Electricity as a Transportation Fuel:
Opportunities & Challenges
Becky Harsh
Director of Retail Consumer Policy
Edison Electric Institute
Already Here & Beyond the Road
Rail
Truck Stop
Forklifts
Seaports
Airports
NEVs
The Driving Forces:
Technology Innovation
 Research & Development of advanced Lithium-Ion batteries
 Electric Power Research Institute, private sector, University Labs
 Department of Energy & National Labs
 Advances in electric & hybrid drivetrains
 Advances in electronics & computer systems
The Driving Forces:
Policy & Geopolitics
 President Obama’s goal of reducing oil consumption by one-
third by 2025
 Recovery Act, DOE RD&D push, Federal Fleet commitment
 Oil prices and Middle East instability
 Alternative Fuel Vehicle legislation gaining momentum in Congress
 CAFÉ Standards and other regulations
 Automakers seeing high-efficiency vehicles as imperative
The Driving Forces Converge
 Realizing the Benefits of Alternative Fuel Vehicles
 Enhanced Energy Security
 Economic Development
 A Cleaner Environment
Benefits of Alternative Fuel Vehicles:
Energy Security
 The U.S. imports 50% of its oil often from unfriendly or
unstable countries
 The U.S. economy and in particular the transportation sector
are heavily reliant on oil
 The costs to the economy and to the nation’s security can be
measured in the $100s of billions annually
Benefits of Alternative Fuel Vehicles:
Economic Development
 Reducing the nation’s trade deficit and utilizing domestic
energy resources will inject billions of dollars into the
economy that would otherwise be going overseas
 Furthermore, PEV and battery manufacturing and related
technological innovation are already creating a vibrant, new
economic sector, with thousands of high-quality jobs
 Since 2007, over 30 battery, drivetrain, and component
manufacturing facilities have opened across the country due to
matching public-private funds
 Over a dozen assembly plants have opened or been re-tooled to
build PEVs
Benefits of Alternative Fuel Vehicles:
A Cleaner Environment
 The extraction, refinement, production, and transportation
of petroleum is harmful to the environment—and it will
never become cleaner
 However, over the last decades, electricity generation has
gotten progressively more diverse & cleaner, and it will
continue to do so
 PEVs produce fewer or no tailpipe emissions
 In a few decades, widespread adoption of PEVs could reduce
GHG emissions by 450 million metric tons annually
The Future is Now:
Passenger PEV Technology
Plug-In Hybrid
Battery Electric
All-electric for 10-40 miles
All-electric for ~100 (or more)
miles
Parallel or Series
Gasoline/Electric Operation
No Gasoline
Battery: 2-10 kWh
Battery: 16-40 kWh
Recharge in 1-4 hours @ 240V
Recharge in 6-12 hours @ 240V
Anticipated Commercial Passenger PEV Launches
2011 Chevrolet Volt –
10,000
2012 Volt production
to 45,000
2013 Volt production
up to 100k
2011 LEAF Launch –
10,000
10,000 more LEAFs
2013 LEAF production
up to 100k
Transit Connect Electric
Launch
Focus Electric Launch
– 19 States
C-Max ENERGI Launch
Model X Launch
Model S Launch –
20,000/year
Roadster since 2008
– over 1,500 sold
Plug-in Prius Launch –
15 States
i Launch
New RAV4 EV Launch
With many more
coming:
Active E Launch
Mini E Launch
Karma Launch
CODA Launch
2010
2011
2012
2013
Electricity as a Transportation Fuel
 Domestically Produced
 Diverse Supply
 Existing Delivery Infrastructure
 Spare Capacity
Utility Efforts
 EEI and its member companies are committed to advancing
the wide-spread acceptance and adoption of electric
transportation.
 Federal, state, and local education, outreach, and coordination
 National Electric Fuel Task Force Advisory Committee
 Federal Standards
 National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
(NARUC)
 State and Local Legislative Outreach
What Utilities Are Doing
 Commitments in six areas:
 Investments in Charging Infrastructure
 Incorporating PEVs into Company Fleets
 Processes that Support Customer Charger
Installations
 Outreach and Education
 Customer and Employee Incentives
 Other Initiatives like Collaborative Projects
Collaborative Projects
 State, Local, and Regional collaborations such as:
 Plug-In Michigan
 California PEV Collaborative
 Project Plug-IN
 Project Get Ready cities (11 in U.S.)
 Clean Cities Coalitions (85)
 The EV Project & ChargePoint America
 Research, Development & Demonstration Projects
 Partnering with EPRI, GM, Toyota, Nissan, and others
Strong Public Policy and Regulation
 Identifying and prioritizing those areas where there will be an
impact on the regulatory paradigm
 Identifying the gaps in current regulatory policies
 Determining what additional information or education is
needed