The enemy is everyone who makes a dime from fossil fuel, that's about 80% of the economy. I'm surprised electric vehicles have gotten this far. Luckily the Japanese are pushing it, because they have no big stake in fossil fuel.

Better late than never, for 30 years it has been send war ships to the Gulf and drill baby drill. Having a plan is better than none. The private sector has had MORE than enough time to make everything right and they have NOT. It would be foolish to wait another 30 years for them to do what needs to be done when they will do what it takes for their own sake. The good of the macro does not come from an aggregate of the micro.

China may show us how it is done. They decide to do something and then they do it. No waiting for someone to come along and maybe help out. Both China and India have the opportunity to get it right the first time around and we will all benefit from that.

"I'm surprised electric vehicles have gotten this far. Luckily the Japanese are pushing it..."

Uh, no. Except for Nissan, Japanese have been heel dragging starting with Toyota's announcement to NOT build a PHEV due to fear of Li-ion safety issues. It is President Obama who gets full credit for driving the PHEV industry along with GM, Tesla and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who proved you could build a hot EV from off shelf parts.

Zhukova, not only will this help quicken the pace of EV production - it meets many of the goals set by the climate and green campaigns. i.e. cutting use of fossil fuels, lowering demand for new fossil power plants, growing new jobs and improving overall health.

Electrification of transport taking hold primarily in the USA, will ultimately result in less global conflict as sustainable energy becomes far more accessible to billions and big energy consumers have less reason to occupy lands rich in fossil fuels.

One area to be wary of: EEI's tendency to co-opt electric production in "smart grids." Centralized power generation is outdated. "Smart grids" will become the new fossil fuel industry if allowed to monopolize energy distribution. We can and MUST diversify our energy production to small distributed energy systems such as home-based CHP residential power units. Jobs, security, safety and Energy Independence are the direct benefits of this.

if solar can replace coal

That would be the ideal yes, but even if it doesn't we'd still come out ahead:

"The idea that electric cars just move pollution over to the powerplant is called the "long tailpipe" theory, and it has been shown to be much less of a concern than many people imagine.

Electric cars create much less pollution due to their vastly superior efficiency, even taking powerplant emissions into account. Gasoline engines are extremely inefficient (less than 25%), and don't forget the energy costs associated with refining and transporting oil.

By contrast, electric motors, batteries, and power transmission systems all have efficiencies around 90%. Even the dreaded coal-fired powerplants are nearly 40% efficient.

All the facts and numbers are on this page:

http://www.electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml

To summarize, if you start with 1,000,000 BTUs of energy, you can travel 183 miles in a gas auto, or 530 miles in an electric vehicle. The vast improvement in energy efficiency means that even if you made ALL your energy with polluting sources, you would still come out way ahead with an EV.

But of course, all of our electricity isn't made that way. Much is made from hydro, solar, nuclear and wind. So the reduction in pollution is even greater."
[Text stolen from somebody called "apeweek"]
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060715095331AAjJwnq

That pollmyth article/analysis is really great. It's a bit dated, the equivalent milage of the EV-1 is listed as 69 mpg. That appears to be around ten years ago, when gas was about $1.30 per gal. Now it's $2.70 and the price of electricity hasn't changed. So now it would be about 150 mpg.

Of course it doesn't take much thought to realize that electric motors are very efficient and ICEs aren't, and therefor switching from tailpipe to smokestack actually uses less energy and produces less polution, which is easier to clean up because it's localized. Still the EVs will put a higher load on coal plants in the short term. Actually I get most of my power from a nuclear plant in central VA.

We also don't need more power plants to charge EVs because most charging will be done at night, when rates are lower and capacity is higher. But the EV charging infrastructure will include photovoltaic power mounted on rooftops. This will have a big impact on the EV industry. Solar panels cost only about $.80 per watt to make and sell for $1.80 retail. I guess wind is even cheaper.

We could supply all the USA's electric power demand (at least in the day) from a 100 by 100 mile square of desert, or the equivalent area on rooftops. The cost would be about the same as the cost of the IRAQ WAR, which most people think was really about oil. Fortunately, Obama not only provides great support for EVs, but also for photovoltaics, as he promised in his campaign. He will may be remembered as the EV President or the Energy President.

SJC - In 1940 Robert Heinlein predicted a more efficient mode of transporting people in his science fiction story "The Roads Must Roll." Moving walkways, like we have now in airports, connecting cities hundreds of miles apart. The system is very efficient, no vehicle at all, just people standing on the conveyor, talking, reading, sipping drinks, while moving at 70 miles per hour. Like every story, the tension builds when a union strike results in sabotage of the conveyor between Chicago and St. Louis, resulting in a 10,000 body pileup.

Harvey you must remember that wont all happen in the same battery.

W-2000

Yes, 12+ different battery packs may match or supersede most of DOE's predictions by 2020/2030. How many packs will meet all of them is a good question. By 2030 they will may all do and more.

Big, expensive batteries in electric vehicles are bad engineering and a waste of money. If the average daily use of a car is 40 miles, a battery that allows 300 miles is a waste since the cost of making and operating a range extender generator for exceptional long trips is quite low and almost no fuel will be used on the average. Stationary cheap batteries at the home can store cheap night energy for a super quick charge during the day when needed. Quick charging from the grid will not be possible without very high demand charges now imposed on businesses. A natural gas powered generator is the cheapest superfast home charger installation.

The Price of $300 per kilowatt hour can only be assumed as a predicted future low price for lithium automobile batteries. Th!nk lithium batteries are so expensive that they have to be leased. It is the equivalent of having to pay for your share of the ship and the oil refinery and the oil company when you buy a car.

To get the electric automobile off the ground, so to speak, requires the cost engineering of TATA. Cheap electric cars with range extenders will be bought by many people. OPOC demonstrated a range extender that could be plugged in by a big driver. ..HG..

A few things to note.

1 Alot of early bev users wont actualy be former ice owners but instead former mass transit riders.

2 Because bevs are best for light cars on short hops.. it cant effect mjuch of the gas used because that is used by heavy cars and longer trips.

3 You still have to factor in the effect of loosing all these massive tax breaks and credits.. as that WILL happen.

4 The higher capcity batteries in genewral are more expensive to make and have shorter lifespans... Not good.

The problem with modular batteries for bevs/phev is that the smallest pack has to POWER the entire car and that requires quite the w/kg. But high wh/kg batteries tend to be low w/kg.

I expect other then a few high end pricy cars we will see bevs grab the low end small car market while fuel cells grab the higher end larger car market and then both ooze toward the middle over the next few decades.