Green Car Congress: GM Urges Feds to Fund Major Battery Research and Development Effort

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GM Urges Feds to Fund Major Battery Research and Development Effort

30 January 2007

In testimony before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources today, GM Vice President for Environment and Energy Beth Lowery urged the government to fund a major effort to strengthen domestic advanced battery capabilities—specifically lithium-ion batteries.

Her stance was echoed during the hearing by statements from other witnesses, including John German, Manager, Environmental and Energy Analyses from Honda and Dr. Menahem Anderman, President, Advanced Automotive Batteries.

In her testimony, Lowery argued for the development of a range of alternative sources of energy and propulsion, the better to mitigate many of the issues surrounding energy availability.

...the fact of the matter is that it is highly unlikely that oil alone is going to supply all of the world’s rapidly growing automotive energy requirements. For the global auto industry, this means that we must—as a business necessity—develop alternative sources of propulsion, based on alternative sources of energy in order to meet the world’s growing demand for our products. The key is energy diversity, which can help us displace substantial quantities of oil that are consumed by US vehicles today.

Lowery suggested five steps the government could take to help:

Fund domestic advanced battery capabilities. “Advanced lithium-ion batteries are a key enabler to a number of advanced vehicle technologies—including plug-in hybrids. Government funding should increase R&D in this area and develop new support for domestic manufacturing of advanced batteries.”
Expand biofuels production and infrastructure. “Government should continue incentives for: the manufacture of biofuel-capable flex fuel vehicles; increases in biofuels production; increases for R&D into cellulosic ethanol; and increased support for broad-based infrastructure conversion.”
Continue support for the development and demonstration of hydrogen and fuel cells. “Funding should continue for hydrogen and fuel cell R&D and demonstration activities at DOE. The government should also commit to early purchases by government fleets and support for early refueling infrastructure in targeted locals in the 2010-2015 timeframe.”
Set a purchasing example. “The government should continue to purchase flex fuel vehicles; demand maximum utilization of E85 in the government flex fuel fleets; use federal fueling to stimulate publicly accessible pumps; provide funding to permit purchase of electric, plug-in and fuel cell vehicles into federal fleets as soon as technology is available.”
Provide further incentives for advanced technology. “Consumer tax credits should be focused on technologies that have the greatest potential to actually reduce petroleum consumption and provide support for manufacturers/suppliers to build/convert facilities that provide advanced technologies.”

John German from Honda agreed on the need for diversity of solutions, and for more emphasis on advanced battery research and development.

By far the most important action the government can take is research into improved energy storage...With respect to hybrids and, especially, plug-in hybrids, the most important factor is to reduce the cost, size, and weight of the battery pack.

The success of electric drive technologies, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and fuel cells, depends on our ability to build less expensive, lighter and more robust energy storage devices.

However, German also reiterated Honda’s position on the benefit of performance-based incentives.

As Honda has previously announced, we believe it is time for the Federal government to take action to improve vehicle economy. Given the rapid changes in technology, performance-based incentives are the best way to move the ball forward. It is impossible to predict the pace of technology development and when breakthroughs will or will not occur. Accordingly, technology-specific mandates cannot get us where we need to go. In fact, previous attempts to mandate specific technologies have a poor track record, such as the attempts in the 1990s to promote methanol and the California electric vehicle mandate.

The primary effect of technology-specific mandates is to divert precious resources from other development programs that likely are much more promising. If there are to be mandates, they should be stated in terms of performance requirements, with incentives and supported by research and development.

One example would be to increase the CAFE standards. The NHTSA already has the authority to regulate vehicle efficiency and Honda has called upon the agency to increase the stringency of the fuel economy requirements and has supported efforts to reform the passenger car standards. At the same time, Congress should develop a program of broad, performance-based incentives to stimulate demand in the marketplace to purchase vehicles that meet the new requirements.

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January 30, 2007 in Batteries, Hybrids, Plug-ins, Policy | Permalink | Comments (40) | TrackBack (0)

Comments

As I mentioned a couple of hours ago I looked up the PNGV project on Google. Even there you must get past a lot of official reports which do little except boast about goals and say little about something of substance.

But I finally figured out PNGV spent about two billion. About half was federal and half automakers. And seemed to do some good work in lithium-ion development.

It also produced some concept cars. The best seems to have been the Ford Prodigy. Apparently diesel emmissions were the real stopper at the time. (In 2008 clean diesels and diesel hybrids hit US markets.)

Visit the site below for a good article about it and the status in 2000.

www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=111

Posted by: K | January 31, 2007 at 10:40 AM

Your anti-business and smarmy leftist Conspiracy attitude is so pathetic. Go hug and kiss a tree and reform it by incantations and exhortation to stop emitting CO2 in off hours. That has always been the leftist program, and it has as much chance of working as any of the several hundred attempts before it. Zero!

Please continue to ballyhoo the tremendous amounts of government money poured down the rat hole of leftist dubious-Science energy research by the Jackass-a-crat know-nothings.

What ever happened to solar, wind, tidal, wave, OTEC, yada, yada officially approved leftist Energy ideas? I know, I know, all it needs is another useless study and More money.

CARB and the proliferation of CARB-lites all over the US, a jobs programs for unemployed leftist self- designated "ecologists", has succeeded in Balkanizing the market and ruling many good programs off the road.

All in search for the unattainable "perfect" perfection, and dismissing the merely good.

"Who killed the EV1" is typical leftist Conspiracy nonsense. Even though you will never, THINK; I implore you to do so once in as while. "Who Engineered the EV1" in the first place is a more appropriate topic?

Why aren't Diesels present here in the US? Thank the non-Scientists of the CARBites. Good isn't good enough.

Why aren't the PGNVs present? Conspiracy?

No the Lovinites won't allow even the recycling of used tires. There is no way to re-cycle the Carbon fiber auto bodies that is allowable. Leftist asses forcing the use of Carbon fiber into auto bodies at a cost then more appropriate to $2 billion dollar each B2 bombers, is an example of Jackass unrealistic ideas. They sound great to a politcal "engineer" who doesn't really have to build anything.

He merely has to spend all the money given to him, so he can ask for MORE next year.

Meanwhile you worship Delphic pronouncements, that fruitcake Lovins espouses, hook line and sinker. While leaving the hard effort to others to take the time and make the incremental advancements that have come to make it practical and bring it to fruition.

Would you even acknowledge how far we have come? The auto is 99.95% cleaner than it used to be. Who did that? A Big Three engineer!

And not some loudmouthed leftist lout.

And no it wasn't Fidel, Chavez, Teddy, Hillary, Ralph or Amory of any any other members of your beloved sacred sainthood.

As a leftist, you would be expected to like Unionized industry. But I guess not. Your hatred for America is just so intense.

They say you can tell everything about a person with who he associates; and with who he doesn't.

But your enemies list of Big Oil, Big Retailing, Big Pharma, Big Three Detroit, Big Technology, and Big Utilities doesn't leave much for you to NOT hate. Did I add No Nukes! No War! No nothing!!

You criticize the no increase in CAFE but it has been re-organized several times and made tougher, each time. CAFE used to be easy to meet, not any more and its easily 20-40% higher in practice than it used to be; while still sitting at an official fig leaf to Detroit and Jackass-a-crat Dingell at 27.5 MPG. A truck loophole was closed and truck mileage was CAFEd, as well.

Frankly, a credsible argument could ber made that the best thing for the environment would be to fire all the CARBites and most of the EPA bureaucrats, and in the words of a favorite of yours "...Let a thousand flowers Bloom...". At least it would ge them out of the way and prevent them impeding some good ideas.

Posted by: Stan Peterson | January 31, 2007 at 10:52 AM

Drefteedog:

Add also Altair Nano, Arotech, Cymbet, Valence, and couple of Canadian companies.

Posted by: Andrey | January 31, 2007 at 12:05 PM

What's the matter Stan. Is it the wrong time of the month for you ;-p

Posted by: DS | January 31, 2007 at 12:59 PM

Ah poo I ment 1975 dangit. My typing skills suck! I am to typing as genhis khan is to needlepoint. Back then while yes some people drove muscle cars alot of .. conservative people drve very weak engined cars because they saved money yet were safe on those roads. Nothing is safe on our roads today.

Posted by: wintermane | January 31, 2007 at 01:10 PM

Take 10% off of executive bonuses from each of the three major manufacturers and apply it to battery research.

Posted by: Andy | January 31, 2007 at 01:14 PM

Andy,

You should tell the investors and board of directors as they are the ones who determine the executives pay and compensation.

Stan does have an excellent point of nothing ever being good enough. There are countless examples of a company going to great effort to get a small gain in efficiency or reduced emissions and you will get 1 praise and about 100 comments of "What is that crap?", "Couldn't they do any better?", "Why do they even bother, I hope they go bankrupt".

Posted by: Patrick | January 31, 2007 at 01:57 PM

anybody with any sense should have now realised that big buisness is screwing the human race big time , it does not matter if your a " lefty " far right or something in the middle , this is about survival and things do not look good for any of us ! wake up and watch somthing that was once so beautiful in its death throes , almost every single ecosystem on this planet is in decline .

Ps . except for jellyfish , apparently they are doing very well !

Posted by: andrichrose | January 31, 2007 at 03:28 PM

Did anyone read Anderman’s testimony?
If you did don’t hold you breath for battery technology. Any money spent will provide results like fuel cells, a poor investment. Government people like to fund companies that have no vested interest in actually solving a problem. That is why most revolutionary products are not government funded.

Posted by: Ed Danzer | January 31, 2007 at 08:42 PM

stan, trees emit oxygen and suck in co2.........

Posted by: Bud Johns | February 01, 2007 at 05:18 AM

Bac a god while ago in the 90s they wanted to raise cafe.. but then they got wind of what the big three were realy planning and it stopped them cold.

By 2028NONE of the big three will be american companies anymkore. They will still have american branches,, but ery downsized.

They might not even have 1 american factory amoung them by then.

And that is what stopped cafe. Its not that ford or gm demanded it stop its that the congress critters cant see a day witout the uaw and all the other unions that will go away when the big three LEAVRE as far as manufacturinign is concerned.

But they only delayyed it and the big three are expanding overseas like cray now and shuttering us plants...

Bu STILL the congress critters cant let it be thier fault they cant raise cafe they MUST wait till its the big thress fault.... Hutless politicians on all sides.

Posted by: wintermane | February 01, 2007 at 06:59 AM

“Trees emit oxygen and suck CO2…”

- by photosynthesis during the day. But as any living creature, plants burn hydrocarbons to produce energy and emit CO2. This process dominates at night, so at night plants release part of CO2 sucked during the day. See plant respiration, for example here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/plant-respiration

Posted by: Andrey | February 01, 2007 at 08:26 AM

Would you even acknowledge how far we have come? The auto is 99.95% cleaner than it used to be. Who did that? A Big Three engineer!
Um, only because the (big bad leftist) government required them to. Without the government's pressure, your brave Big ~~Three~~ Two Point Five engineer wouldn't even provide us with seat belts!

Nice rant, Stan. And don't worry, it is all a big conspiracy. Now back to FOX news for more "fair and balanced" reporting...

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Posted by: platinumbobbydog | October 27, 2007 at 02:34 PM

"Screw Detroit" who says these things. Detroit is American so if you say Screw Detroit you are screwing American.

So many people today are anti- American. It’s really bad. We are buying foreign products are our economy is heading south for one reason we are buying foreign products.

YES the USG needs to invest VERY heavily into Battery research. Keep the technology here in the US keep the battery plants in the US keep the US auto manufactures on top.

Toyota didn’t developed hybrid ford did because of Clinton. Clinton pushed the big 3 to develop it.

Hybrid is really a cheap technology. Full Electric cars are really the best. Hybrid is a hack job so companies can use the battery license from chevron that gm sold.

It’s sad that people have to be in style and buy a prius but deface there country at the same time.

When to make a prius from manufacturing, shipping of parts to the usa, to the battery death issue it makes it about as environmentally friendly as a Mack truck.

The real GEM but no one will admit because they are anti- American. Lets bash Detroit is the new GM 2 mode hybrid. A 6000 lb truck gets the same gas mileage as a Toyota camery!

Posted by: greg | December 18, 2007 at 11:53 AM