How much of an impact will electric cars have by 2015 – the Electrification Coalition believes it has the answer.
It has released the Fleet Electrification Roadmap on electric drive technology adoption among the more than 16million commercial, corporate and governmental fleet vehicles in the United States. In 2009 it proposed that by 2040, 75 per cent of the light duty vehicle miles travelled in the US should be electric miles.
Coalition member Frederick W Smith outlined that enormous progress has been made with electric vehicles over the last year and now the main focus is to promote a comprehensive policy framework that will accelerate consumer adoption of both plug-in electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles.
The roadmap outlines the most significant technological challenges facing fleet operators and recommends targeted public policies that could help to overcome these challenges. They include tax credits; clean renewable energy bonds for infrastructure; immediate expensing of GEV purchases and supporting infrastructure for operators of certain fleets; the guarantee of residual value for first generation lithium-ion batteries; and federal fleet electrification.
It also outlines a detailed total cost of ownership modelling for both plug-ins and battery electric vehicles for a number of industries and suggests that with targeted policies in place, fleet adoption could result in 200,000 cumulative vehicles on the road by 2015.
