SAN JOSE, Calif. - The electrification of the automobile is not only inevitable, advocates and experts say, it is essential because plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles offer our best chance to address global warming, achieve energy security and move us beyond oil.
That isn't to say we'll all be plugging our cars into electrical sockets by the end of this decade, or even the next. But many experts agree plug-ins and EVs will only become more prevalent and could comprise half of all cars sold in America by 2050.
"We can no longer rely on oil to provide the bulk of our transportation fuel. It's just that simple and that obvious," Jon Lauckner, head of global vehicle development for General Motors, said during the opening of the Plug-In 2008 conference in San Jose. "We believe the ultimate solution involves the electrification of the automobile as soon as possible. The discussion has shifted from if this happens to when this happens."
The road ahead is long and marked by technological, political and market challenges, which is why utility companies, battery manufacturers and automakers joined EV advocates at the conference to figure out how we get there from here.
Petroleum accounts for 96 percent of the nation's transportation fuel, a position Lauckner says is untenable given the world's growing thirst for the stuff. The domestic auto market is in the dumps, but sales are booming in the developing world. China is poised to become the world's largest auto market by 2014, Lauckner said, and 15 percent of the world's population will be driving by 2020. "That's over 1 billion vehicles," he said. The only way to ensure all those cars don't destroy the planet is to start giving them electric motors.
Critics argue 70 percent of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels and so plug-ins and hybrids don't reduce carbon dioxide, they just move it around. Not so, says the Electric Power Research Institute and the National Resources Defense Council. Their research shows plug-ins and EVs could cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 450 million metric tons annually by 2050. That's the equivalent of eliminating 82.5 million gasoline vehicles -- about a third of the number currently on the road in America. The benefits will grow as nuclear and renewable sources of power become more prevalent, said Mark Duvall, one of the authors of the study....
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/electric-cars-a.html
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