DOE announces 16 projects to accelerate adoption of EVs, 7 projects to prepare college students for careers in advanced vehicle field
09 September 2011
The US Department of Energy announced 16 projects supporting activities in 24 states and the District of Columbia to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in communities across the nation, and 7 additional projects in seven states to help prepare college students for careers designing and building advanced vehicle technologies.
Clean Cities Initiative Awards $8.5 million. Projects to support community planning for plug-in electric vehicles and charging infrastructure will receive $8.5 million through DOE’s Clean Cities initiative to facilitate local public-private partnerships that will develop EV deployment strategies. The funding recipients range from communities with extensive EV planning experience to those that are eager to begin, but have not previously had the resources to do so.
These one-year projects will help communities address their specific needs, which include updating permitting processes, revising codes, training municipal personnel, promoting public awareness, or developing incentives, and each will create a plan that will be publicly available so that other stakeholders can learn best practices.
The Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) Initiative Awards $6.4 million. DOE's Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) initiative will award $6.4 million over the course of five years to support seven Centers of Excellence at American colleges, universities, and university-affiliated research institutions. The awardees will focus on three critical automotive technology areas: hybrid propulsion, energy storage, and lightweight materials.
By funding curriculum development and expansion as well as laboratory work, GATE allows higher education institutions to develop multidisciplinary training. As a result, GATE promotes the development of a skilled workforce of engineering professionals who will overcome technical barriers and help commercialize the next generation of advanced automotive technologies.
DOE announced the availability of funding for these projects in February and April 2011.
This type of project is very useful to reduce our inherent resistance to EVs (and many other changes), specially the die hard naysayers.
Posted by: HarveyD | 09 September 2011 at 06:47 AM
Agreed Harvey. We'd like to see these awards tracked for efficacy and public awareness.
Posted by: Reel$$ | 09 September 2011 at 08:40 AM
What are you guys talking about?
This is to “overcome technical barriers”.
There is no problem with “inherent resistance to EVs (and many other changes)”.
This is not about “public awareness”.
All credible predictions of when EVs will be competitive are sadly in the not too near future.
One of the worst “predictions” says:
“Study finds that low carbon vehicles will make progress in closing TCO gap by 2030, but will still require financial support for wide adoption. 6 September 2011” GreenCarCongress.
Yikes, that's 20 years.
Where you, Harvey, responded; ” will produce much lower cost higher performance e-storage units by 2025. Basic pure light weight BEVs will also cost less than expected 15 years from now.”
You think 15 years, Harvey?
It is common knowledge that EVs are still a poor financial choice. [I think for less than 10 years.]
Obviously EV sales are low because when people ask themselves if they want to spend their own money on an EV, they say ney.
It’s not just the initial price; they might spend more, they might spend less, but they turn away from EVs.
Posted by: ToppaTom | 11 September 2011 at 12:30 AM