President Obama Announces $2.4 Billion in Funding for Electric Vehicles
President Obama announced today that $2.4 billion will be made available for the US-based development of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.
The fund is intended to spur growth in research and manufacturing of next-generation plug-in hybrid vehicles and advanced battery componenents for electric cars, while creating tens of thousands of US jobs and reducing US petroleum dependence. It should also help meet the President’s goal of putting one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015.
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The President made the announcement while visiting Southern California Edison’s Electric Vehicle Center. SCE is one of the largest electric utilities in the country and researches battery-powered and hybrid engines, along with potential impacts of having massive numbers of electric vehicles taking power from conventional utility networks.
This investment will not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it will put Americans back to work. It positions American manufacturers on the cutting edge of innovation and solving our energy challenges.
-President Obama
The plan was partially outlined on the Department of Energy’s website:
- The Department of Energy is offering up to $1.5 billion in grants to U.S. based manufacturers to produce these highly efficient batteries and their components.
- The Department of Energy is offering up to $500 million in grants to U.S. based manufacturers to produce other components needed for electric vehicles, such as electric motors and other components.
- The Department of Energy is offering up to $400 million to demonstrate and evaluate Plug-In Hybrids and other electric infrastructure concepts — like truck stop charging station, electric rail, and training for technicians to build and repair electric vehicles.
“it takes 7 - 15 minutes to kill yourself with a vehicle running in your garage so we know the fumes are deadly”
It takes you about that much time to die in a pool of water for similar reasons. I’ll agree that car/bus/etc. fumes aren’t good, but this isn’t a good example of why.
$2 billion is hardly a major investment. But for an industry dominated by hobbyist and DIY, it’s a start.
Electric vehicles are more efficient than gasoline even when their powerplant is a(n) hundred miles or more away. Try twice the gas mileage and half the emissions.
Home conversions aren’t the half of it. Electric vehicles can be purposely built more aerodynamic and many times more efficient. Electric motors can be watercooled with a massively smaller air intake than a gasoline car. Keeping the batteries in their operating range is merely a matter of using the little bit of heat they give out to maintain temperature in colder weather.
It’s a mixed blessing. Companies started/sustained by government subsidies rarely survive on their own. I’d rather see Obama fund aggressive grid upgrades, conservation and basic R&D. He’s done some of that, but not enough.
I’m more encouraged by the carbon tax proposals. You raise the price of energy and you make all kinds of good things happen in the market place. People conserve… they buy smaller cars, they weatherize their homes, and YES they invest in new technologies. Now that oil is cheap again, I predict the majority of innovative companies discussed on this site will be gone in 1-2 years. Taxing energy is the only real way to restore a balanced ecosystem.
Something I forgot…
He’s giving 10-20x the money to Detroit, so they can keep making polluting crap nobody wants to buy. If electrics ever made a dent in their market share, I believe they would just lower the price to force the electrics out of business. They can do that because Uncle Same is letting them operative without a profit.
2.4 billion? hes given more than that to complete BS projects… i was talking with some wealthy friends i met through (www.affluence.org) and am just appalled at the way obama is spending money
[...] The news comes hot on the heels of President Obama’s announcement of a whopping $2.4 billion investment in electric vehicles in the United States. [...]
Instead of eletric(need need power plants= still need oil),Hidrogen (cost to produce + new infrastructure to produce/deliver product and technology not totally secure). What about Biodiesel from algae? easy to make,renualble source, high yeld compare to soy, vegetable oil and other natural oils, can use salt water to be made, very little land use and doesn’t afect food land use, either attached to food production.
Not mensioning the use of raw sewage (farm waste run, human waste) as a fertilizer for algae, that later, will be returned as natural fertilizer as a final by product. Those are reasons enough to look into this process. Less, Co2, low cost to manufacture, every plant can have their own disel genarator, so they don’t need “fossil oil” to make the Biodisel…
The studies are all out there. Look on the web. Professor Fut, from the UH, University of honolulu already holds a patente on the process…
Clean, cheap, renuable and we just have to manufacture biodiesel. The infrastructure for delivery is already in place and we have diesel cars and trucks…What you guys think about?
The problem is that what is being done is to create a non level playing field on two counts. First is the grant. Second is the increase in taxes to provide for the grants. Both of these make the electric vehicle cost less than reality and the non electric vehicle cost more than reality.
At the turn to the 20th century there were some very good electric cars built and sold. They lost out because they were not as convenient. Most of those reasons have been overcome. Well designed electric cars should be capable of standing on their own merits. Taxing those who can not afford electric vehicles to support the desires of elitists is not reasonable.
“Waaaaah electricity comes from burning coal”
This is a stepping stone, a building block, the next step towards renewable energy. We can’t go straight from petrol to hydrogen.
Yeah, electric cars to go along with his increase in the cost of electricity..people won’t be able to charge their ‘new’ cars with the cost of electricity when he’s through, it will be worse than paying $3.00 a gallon for gas..