"the data indicate that the plug-in vehicle option offers only modest improvement (i.e., on average 43% vs. 38%, with similar ranges of GHG reduction percentages) over the full HEV but at considerably higher cost-effectiveness values (i.e. greater than three time higher)"
It's not clear what "full HEV" means exactly. I would define as Series-PHEV, which is same as Extended-Range Electric Vehicle (E-REV), of course. Not sure they mean that here. Could not find definitions in pdf, though I just breezed through. Think the author means higher HEV performance as seen in cars available now like the Prius. Problem is this neglects new battery (Li Ion) technology, economies of scale, and advantage of simpler design for Series-PHEVs (E-REVs) that are in the pipeline for production now. It also ignores the fact that solar, wind, and nuclear power will capture a larger share of the electric power market in the next 10 to 20 years. This will further reduce GHG for E-REVs and BEVs, already the lowest option.
You cannot do a straight line prediction based on past and present performance when disruptive technologies are involved. This study indicates the general direction to go but does not give the whole picture.

The wording is a little convoluted but the author does point out that PHEV has "considerably higher cost-effectiveness values (i.e. greater than three time higher)" than HEV ...if I'm reading correctly.
THIS IS NUTS ON!

I think it's entirely possible to get GHG emission to 1990 levels or below....

On another note - CHECK OUT THIS NEW PROPULSION SYSTEM!
There have got to be more applications for this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLJ8bwIWwWI

I think it's entirely possible to get GHG emission to 1990 levels or below....

On another note - CHECK OUT THIS NEW PROPULSION SYSTEM!
There have got to be more applications for this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLJ8bwIWwWI

The study with its focus on emissions ignores another claimed benefit of plug-ins, namely grid stability. Night time charging and emergency redraw from PHEV batteries is supposed to improve the effectiveness of current grid generation capacity. If that's true it may factor in extra CO2 savings that take PHEVs past simple HVs.

Hey look Ma, with plug in Hybrids we can get back to 1990 levels of GHG emissions.

News Flash !!!
1990 levels of GHG emissions were still way too high and killing the planet.

With totally electric cars, and renewable energy sources supplying our grid, we can have zero emissions.

Get Real. Shill games on how little we can do are insane.

Table 10 finally defines what is "Full" HEV, which is Series HEV.
I have difficulty to believe that the cost-effectivesness value of PHEV is $300 versus below $100 for "Full" HEV while the PHEV offers very little improvement on GHG reduction. Does the author assume all electricity from grid is generated from outdated coal-fired plant?

It's important to understand the definition of cost-effectiveness used in the report. It is dollars per ton of greenhouse gas reduction. This means that HIGH cost-effectiveness is BAD. You want to use the technologies with the LOWEST cost per ton of GHG reduction. When the report says that plug-ins have 3 times the cost-effectiveness of regular hybrids, that means plug-ins are WORSE in terms of efficiently reducing carbon emissions.

Hal, I know what the cost-effectiveness means. How would PHEV cost 3 times more than HEV for the same GHG reduction. PHEV uses electricity from grid to recharge the battery instead of the ICE or hydrogen fuel cell onboard vehicle.

Table 10 is vague:
"Advanced Hybrid- Electric Efficiency"
"Full HEV (regenerative braking, battery-electric storage, propulsion from motor(s) and ICE engine)"
"38% reduction in new vehicle tailpipe CO2 (g/mi) for half of new vehicle sales"

However, NREL 40969 states:
The “mild” HEV Saturn Vue achieves a modest reduction of less than 20%. The “full” HEV Toyota Prius (relative to Corolla) achieves the highest percentage reduction (40%) of all HEVs currently on the market although, in addition to the platform enhancements employed in production hybrids, it also uses an advanced (Atkinson-cycle) engine technology.
The NREL model for a standard vehicle shows fuel consumption in litres/100km of:
Base 10.3
HEV 7.4 (-28%)
PHEV20 5.7 (-45%)
PHEV40 4.5 (-56%)
The NREL figures are quite different from the "averages" quoted by the UCD student.

The section on hybrids refers to NREL researcher Tony Markel (and others).

Tony Markel has been in the news recently talking about his plug-in Prius retrofitted with a $40,000 conversion package which has a 9 kilowatt-hour, lithium-ion battery pack.

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_9576229
Quote from Denver Post:
Markel hopes the data he and others at NREL have been collecting will help the auto industry produce affordable vehicles with dramatically higher fuel mileage.

After driving the car daily for a while, much of the work has shifted to the lab, where NREL scientists are looking at the performance of battery packs. That's the area the industry is most interested in, Markel said.

"It's a challenge to make battery packs that essentially last the life of the vehicle," Markel said. "Those are kind of the big barriers: how to put the smallest (battery) pack you can in there, get the most value out of it and make it last the life of the vehicle.

"But we certainly have confidence in the progress that's been made. We will get there," Markel said.

The NREL research papers on hybrids are very interesting for greencarcongress readers.
See NREL website for pdfs that you can download:
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/vsa/pubs_hevs.html

The executive summary of NREL 40609 states -
Key conclusions from the analyses are:
1.) The expected petroleum reduction of a PHEV is substantial, but the incremental costs may present a barrier to broad market penetration. A PHEV20 would likely reduce petroleum consumption by 50% but cost $8,000 more than a conventional vehicle. The PHEV40 would cost$11,000 more than a conventional vehicle and may reduce petroleum consumption by 62%.
2.) If PHEVs are to provide a payback relative to a hybrid electric vehicle within 10 years, based on fuel cost savings and purchase cost alone, battery costs must reach long-term, high-volume cost estimates (<$300/kWh), and gasoline costs must increase to more than $4/gal. In the absence of both lower battery costs and higher gas prices, alternative value propositions (e.g., government incentives, vehicle-to-grid revenue, battery leases, the value of a “green” image, avoided trips to the gas station, and the feel of electric operation) must be considered to overcome the cost premium of PHEVs.

Conclusions from the travel survey data are:
a.) Approximately 50% of the vehicles travelled less than 29 miles a day. A PHEV with 20–30 miles of electric range capability provides sufficient energy to displace a large percentage of daily petroleum consumption.
b.) If all vehicles in the travel survey “fleet” were PHEV20 vehicles designed for all-electric range on the Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule, petroleum consumption would be reduced by 56% relative to a conventional vehicle fleet.

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Energy Management Strategies:
a.) The misconception that a PHEVx must drive using electricity for the first x miles and then use the engine for the remaining travel must be clarified. This is one strategy that a manufacturer may choose to pursue, but it is not the only strategy. As long as the strategy is achieving a net discharge of the battery, petroleum will be displaced, regardless of whether the vehicle is operated on battery only or on a combination of battery and engine power (known as a “blended” control strategy).
b.) The selection of strategy and component sizing are not entirely independent. Reducing the rated power and size of the electric traction components is one way to reduce the cost of a PHEV. Reducing electric components also necessitates the use of a “blended” strategy. The “blended” strategy can still utilize electric propulsion to the maximum extent possible to minimize the vehicle’s instantaneous fuel use. NREL’s analysis shows that a PHEV with electric traction components half the size (based on power) of an all-electric PHEV can provide nearly the same petroleum reduction as an all-electric PHEV.

HC, as I understand it, a conventional hybrid gives you a lot of "bang for the buck" in terms of battery size. The GHG gains mostly come from running the engine in an efficient regime. You don't need an enormous battery to get these gains.

Whereas with a plug-in, GHG improvements are all about switching from burning gasoline in the car to whatever is generating the electricity. The problem is that you need a very substantial battery pack for the PHEV to be practical, which hurts your cost effectiveness. I remember seeing other articles posted here in the past few months which made the same point, that conventional hybrids were more cost effective than plug-ins because of battery size and cost issues.

OK, so I did interprete this wrong. More non-sense about HEVs being better than Series-PHEVs. I get the cost argument. It's the same that has been used before here at green car. It's the same that's been used in the past to say that improving ICEs made more sense than HEVs. It's incorrectly based on a static cost analysis of technology in the process of changing.

Polly,
The only world where a blended PHEV even makes sense is one where the electric motors are too heavy or the POWER density of the batteries is not high enough to accomplish a single drive PHEV. The world of the Prius and PHEV Prius. The Prius parallel/series HEV design is now over 10 years old. That world is going to pass into history now. The single drive Series PHEV is simpler. It's going to cost less and be easier to maintain ...and get a little better mpg with a little less GHG. Why continue with parallel drive HEV/PHEV systems if the technology now exists to build simpler and more efficient systems?

No offense intended, but these studies are based on past information and they're not accurate for predicting into the future. The cost advantage of HEVs will change in favor of Series PHEVs.

Say hello to the Aptera, the Volt, others.

I think another missing point here is in terms of maintenance and life span of the EV itself. Combustion engines are far more complex than the electric motor of a pure BEV. Hybrid's that retain the ICE would seem to have a higher total cost of ownership due to the additional maintenance supporting both systems.

This paper echoes what I and many other people have been saying for a long time. It is spot on.

There are only four major sectors of the economy that consume fossil. Only three that generate large amounts of CO2 from burning.

Transport, HVAC, Electric generation are the three CO2 generators, and the organic chemical feedstock sectors is a moderately large fossil consumer.

Feed stock and HVAC sectors are at 1970 levels of CO2 emissions already. They have found the substitutes and have already adopted them.
Only Transport and electric generation represent moderate or large growth in consumption of fossil fuels. Electric has found the substitutes, and is perfecting them. Sun, Wind, and Nuclear are being built. The contributions from nuclear, renewables, and hydro, will grow to over almost 60 percent of electric generation by 2020.

Provided that nobody screws it up, like Obama.

There is virtually no electricity generated with oil any longer. There has been some expansion of natural gas fired peaking plants. But sun, wind and perfected LWR Nuclear, will double in electric generation by 2020.

Sun and wind from 0.75% to 1.5% and nuclear from 20 to 40% of electric generation. While hydro stays about the same. Coal will fall, percentage wise. But even new coal plants, without resorting to CCS, cut CO2 emission by 20% as they efficiently get 20% more electricity from the same amount of Coal; even as they do it much cleaner, removing lots of toxics, soot and PMs.

So the only question is the real fossil and oil growth user, the Transport sector does, that this paper addresses.

He postulates a base of 32 mpg for LDV. Surprise, we already achieve that for autos:

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/excel/table_04_23.xls

But the heavier truck portion of the LDV fleet does not meet that CAFE figure.

Improvements to come that he postulates in the ICE engines, are DI, dual turbos, and HCCI. All are coming, and some features are already appearing in showrooms.

Genuinely cleaner diesels, (T2B5- compliant diesels) are also appearing, and some LDV trucks and cars will certainly adopt them. These will improve IC engines by their 20-25% better engine efficiencies.

So the "incremental improvements" target is already met; with extensive gains yet to come.

Every automaker has a hybrid for sale. Many more will follow, as the pipeline bulges in every automakers future product announcements. Inspecting the enormous numbers of factories being built to produce hybrids components, assures two things. The bottlenecks will be removed; and proves that many more hybrids are coming.

Many here seem to be prone to always be far ahead of reality. HEVS and PHEVS are just starting to appear, yet many say they are obsolete and BEVs will be the coming thing.

I think not.

At least until we have another generation of chemistry for batteries. Truck power demands are just too much for the LI-Ion based chemistries. But Li-ion is fine for the autos, and lighter duty trucks.

Every vehicle will have some form of hybridization by 2020, and probably by 2015. Most BEVs will still be a tiny segment of the LDV fleets, until then, awaiting something more than Li-Ion.

Those changes alone are enough to bring the US Transport sector back to 1970s levels of fossil consumption. That sector, unlike other sectors, being the only real growth sector for fossil consumption, since the 1970s. The 1970s levels of fossil consumption are assured. With these simple, already happening and already planned changes, the US meets not 1990 but 1970 level goals for the Transport sector and the entire economy. Isn't efficiency and modern technology wonderful?

And with it we will not need any crash programs to fight a non-existent global warming threat from GHGs, if we ever did.

Despite the ever more hysterical preaching from the Baptist Divinty School flunk-out, the Jim Bakker, Billy Sunday, Elmer Gantry wanna-be, the televangelist Algore.

And despite the ever more hysterical rants of his pet true-believer James Hansen, Mr. global warming. A creature he created in 1988, like Stalin created Lysenko.

I could almost feel sorry for them, as the GHG scam unravels. OTOH, both have made multi-millions pushing their rubbish, of an out of control and Anthropogenic-caused GW.

Too bad the periodic Sun has turned down, and the global temperature has declined for a decade, with a few more to follow per the Astrophysicists.

@stas

Would you care to include the rest of the world in your estimates? If not, please elaborate on how the U.S. might design, construct and staff a 100% increase in nuclear power plants (including training construction workers, engineers and operators) in 12 years?

Stuff Stan(Stas)...Just a nuc nut trying to hitch a free ride on renewable energy sources, plus getting a free dig at Barack Obama.