Obama Admin Issues 'Down Payment' on Electric Cars, Batteries

   

A $2.4 billion grant program has renewed hope that a U.S. industry in electric cars and the batteries to propel them won't be hopelessly stuck behind foreign competitors.

The grants ...were billed as the largest auto-battery investment ever. The funds will be split among 48 projects throughout the supply chain, from developing batteries to building manufacturing plants to demonstrating actual vehicles.

Observers hailed the grants as a "down payment" for an industry that, in truth, isn't too far behind its overseas rivals and that could make a profound reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

"We're at the beginning of a very large opportunity," said Brian Wynne, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association. "There's a choke point here. The choke point is the availability of automotive-grade batteries. That choke point is worldwide. That's not a U.S. phenomenon."

...
Mark Duvall, director of electric transportation for the Electric Power Research Institute, a utility-funded think tank, said the funding will drive projects pushed to the sidelines by the recession.

"In this economy, to come up with that type of cost-matching for other investments would be almost impossible," he said. EPRI's project wouldn't have likely taken place without the funding, he said.

EPRI will join the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Southern California to develop 350 plug-in hybrid trucks. By the time all the trucks are built, Duvall said, they should know enough to have them ready for commercial sale.

There are potentially bigger effects in store. Major battery producers Johnson Controls Inc. and A123 Systems Inc. will channel their grants -- $300 million and $250 million -- into parts for hybrid and electric cars. Both companies are leading the American efforts to develop a lithium-ion battery, the technology currently considered to have the qualities needed to produce a car at large scale.
..." NYT