Too little, too late.  This is the money that should have gone to the programs in 2001.  Today, it should be subsidies at least as great as those for ethanol; even the hydrogen boondoggle gets more money than this.

For a given battery kwh capacity, a full hybrid (HEV) would save a lot more energy (GHG release) than a BEV or PHEV. The battery capacity required for one PHEV (16-kwh GM Volt) is sufficient to make 10 (ten) full HEV of equivalent load capacity (GM's 2-mode HEV). A good full HEV can almost double the combined mpg of an equivalent non-HEV. For example, for every gallon of gasoline a non-HEV will burn, ten HEV's will save 5 gallons, while a PHEV in exclusively electric mode will only save 1 gallon of gasoline, thus 5:1 effectiveness ratio. But, a PHEV's even in its electric-only mode cannot improve much the overall thermal efficiency (from source to wheel) of a full HEV.

For that reason, it is important to reserve enough raw materials for enough battery production to make every new car a HEV in order for maximizing energy saving and minimizing CO2 release.

Concerns regarding the dwindling petroleum supply can be addressed by requiring (mandating) all new cars to be increasingly more and more full HEV’s, AND by making an increasing percentage of all of these new HEV’s to run on methane (compressed natural gas or CNG) instead of gasoline, AND mandating most large gas stations to make CNG available to the public.
Given the already extensive NG pipeline infrastructure already exist, providing NG at the gas station would be cost effective due to the much lower price of NG per unit of energy in comparison to expensive gasoline. Methane can be a renewable fuel from cellulosic farm waste, or synthesized from renewable hydrogen, or made from the gasification of coal. Even renewable methane is now more than cost-effective than gasoline, the latter is getting more and more expensive.

Methane adsorptive materials are now available to make the CNG tank at reasonable size and weight and using much lower pressures than before, that would allow cheaper hardware than before. Already, 7 millions cars in the world are running on CNG.
What is the USA waiting for? Until all the Iraqi oil (under the control of the US military) to be sold?

I don't see the case where the raw materials for making batteries will be exhausted. Ultimately it is the consumers that will decide which kind of car technology they will adopt.

"In 2005, world lithium consumption was the equivalent of nearly 80,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate.

Chile has been the world’s leading producer of lithium carbonate since 1997, when it surpassed the United States in production. Most commercial lithium carbonate production in the world is from brine deposits because of the significantly lower cost of production combined with the abundance of lithium in brines."

Estimated Crustal Abundance: 2.0×10^1 mgrams per kgram

It is reasonable to assume that long before lithium resources are threatened, yet another material for energy storage will arise. Combined with ultra-capacitors smaller batteries will do the work of large EV packs today. No, though lithium wars may peak doomer mindsets - it ain't going to happen.

Roger: The oceans are chock-a-block with Lithium. You can use selective absorbers to gather it, or get it as a byproduct of water desalinization.

You know what we are really short on?
Rhodium, Gold, Palidium, and Platinum.

i.e. The Catalysts required for PEM Fuel Cells.

sorry, I think I mixed up who wrote what

Patrick,
An economy-optimized full HEV can nearly double the combined mpg of a non-HEV of similar load capacity. The 50% improvement of the GM 2-mode hybrid is due to the fact that the ICE is not reduced in size, in order to boast a more powerful vehicle. Likewise, the Camry hybrid does not have a down-sized engine, either, and the mpg gain is not as spectacular as the Prius, with driver-reported average combined mpg to be 48 mpg. An equivalent non-hybrid car with similar payload rating of 810 lbs would get a combined mpg of about 24-26 or so.
Economy-optimized HEV's and PHEV's have similar size of engines, motors and generators, so I don't know what you are talking about. A PHEV is simply an HEV with a larger battery pack. Now, with a larger battery pack, the ICE can be reduced a little in size, but the motor must be larger to make up for the less powerful ICE. The PHEV still suffers from the heavier weight of the larger battery pack.

Neil,
It is uneconomical to extract lithium from sea water. The price of li-ion battery is already very expensive now, when lithium is extracted from source of much higher concentration than sea water. Cost is everything when determining which technologies to push forward. Synthetic methane and biomethane are cheap to make in bulk amount since it's so simple chemically, and the distribution infrastructure already exist, just like electricity.

Greyfalcon,
Technology now exists to reduce the Platinum content of PEM Fuel cell to 1/100th the amount previously. Also, not every car have to be powered by FC. ICE-HEV running on methane or hydrogen will still be a viable propulsion means long into the future.

2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid 33/34 mpg

2008 Toyota Camry(4 Cyl) 21/31 mpg

So, if you can get 26 mpg combined in the regular Camry and 33 combined in the hybrid, 13,000 combined city/hwy miles will take 500 gallons in the regular car and 394 gallons in the hybrid for a savings of 106 gallons per year.

106 gallons x $3 per gallon = $318

The hybrid MSRP is $25,200

The regular MSRP is $19,620

The hybrid costs $5580 more.

$5580 / $318 is more than 17.5 years to payback the additional cost (simple estimate)

Since most people finance their cars for 3-5 years, this may be why people say that the price premium is not worth it.

sjc,
The Camry hybrid is far more equipped than the barebone $19,620 Camry. If you would get a Camry with automatic transmission and equipped similarly to the base Camry hybrid, the price differential would only be $3000-$4000. AND the Camry hybrid is worthy of higher price premium because it has 190 hp vs 156 hp for the Camry 4-cylinder, and the hybrid is capable of much faster acceleration, which is already worth several thousands dollars of price premium.

People would readily pay thousands higher for options such as a navigational system, more power, 8-cylinder smoothness etc...without ever considering the payback...BECAUSE THERE WILL BE NO PAYBACK POSSIBLE FOR LUXURY AND COMFORT OPTIONS...The hybrid is more comfortable, more quiet...and gives you bragging rights...How do price the ability to reduce petroleum and energy consumption, with much cleaner exhaust emission? PRICELESS!!!

I get your point also. Auto mfg's have to charge hybrid option higher initially in order to recoup the investment costs, and also, the lack of availability of HEV's has been keeping the price of HEV's high. Battery availability has been one of the limiting factor in hybrid availability. Eventually, more production facility and tooling will be dedicated for HEV production, expect the price of an HEV to be comparable to that of a non-HEV. Toyota and Honda are announcing that they will reduce by half the price premium of hybrid from a conventional model. PHEV's can potentially claim too much of battery-production capacity that should be devoted to the production of a maximum number of economy-optimized HEV's.

The next bold step is for the Government to push for alternative fuels such as methane and hydrogen. It would not be too expensive for large gas stations to be equipped with CNG dispensing mechanism, and they can easily recoup this investment eventually.
By mandating increasing sales of HEV and methane-capable HEV's, similar to the CARB's ZEV mandate, petroleum dependency can be overcome in the proper time table to avert disastrous disruption in the economy and social fabric due to rapid petroleum exhaustion, falling far short of demand in the not-too-distant future.

Gentlemen:

Are $$ the only reasons to buy a greener vehicle.

If so, a carbon tax could fix it. Tax gas guzzlers about $5K to $10K and subsidize PHEVs at the same rate and the reluctance to buy greener more expensive cars will quickly disappear.

A progressive new-additional gas-fuel tax (3 to 5 cents/gallon a month)or about (1 cent/litre a month) for the next 120 months (or longer), would also help to convince the others and help to finance the introduction of PHEVs and BEVs.

Polluters should pay, progressively more, for the damage they do. Non-polluters should receive adequate compensations for their efforts.

Roger correctly focuses on the Key Issue - how to maximise the reduction in oil consumption most cost and resource effectively.

First, Lithium batteries are an industrial non-starter due to very limited cost effective supply: the price has already tripled in 5 years under consumer electronics demand, only 25% of the Li produced today is used in batteries and the market distorting effects of only modest numbers of LiIon HEVs or PHEVs - a few million only - will send Lithium prices quadrupling, quintupling within 12 months. Talk of getting it from seawater and the crust is industrially unrealistic - you may as well say let’s import Helium 3 from the Moon. The Germans extracted gold from seawater during the war under war exigencies - is it worth doing today? No. Hydrogen is a lot more abundant on Earth than Lithium too but like the Lithium, try extracting and producing it economically both in energy and cost terms. Not possible.

So, a standard Prius today gets 50mpg, more than double the criminally delinquant US average of 20.68mpg. Demand for cars like everything is price eleastic. Clearly, 5 Prius cars with a 1.5kWh battery will be individually much cheaper than one PHEV with a 7.5kWh battery, since the battery cost dominates the equation so much. One 7.5kWh PHEV might be driven 15,000 miles per year with let’s say 50% electric miles, leaving 7,500 miles at 50mpg or 150 gallons of gasoline burned, overall saving 600USG over a 20mpg vehicle; but 5 50mpg Priuses driving 15,000 miles each will save 2250 USG overall over 5 20mpg vehicles. So for the same amount of battery capacity we save nearly 4 times as much fuel, and the HEV is available to a wider market than the 7.5kWh PHEV because it’s cheaper.

The Daihatsu UFEII hybrid, using a similar drivetrain to the Prius, does 120mpg (lightweight and aerodynamic body).

If we simply used small ICs to power a generator and drive all cars as series hybrids, that would reduce fuel consumption further.