Along with the race among carmakers for plug-in vehicles, in the
absence of a major Congressional or Executive commitment, we're
seeing an emerging regional initiatives: Texas, Washington, Illinois,
NY, the Carolinas, Maryland/Delaware/DC, Colorado are all developing
projects. And last week, at the world's first large conference on
PHEVs in Winnipeg http://www.pluginhighway.ca , Manitoba, Ontario,
British Columbia and the national government all showed signs of
wanting Canada to get there first with demonstration fleets,
incentives and other steps toward PHEV commercialization.

At the same time, PHEV plans and programs are popping up all over
California! Corporations: Google is on board at
http://www.RechargeIT.org , at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group's
http://www.OurPower.org campaign, executives (including the founder
and a key investor in the $200M "Project Better Place" venture
launched last week) are signing up to get cars. With the growing
support among elected officials, PHEV advocates are gearing up to
ensure that the just-enacted AB118's $120M/year for alternative fuel
and clean-air technology is well spent. Governor Schwarzenegger and
Attorney-General Brown have gone to court to end the US EPA's
stalling on a waiver so we can implement AB1493, the pioneering
global warming law of 2002. We're still hoping the Governor will
realize he can achieve his goals sooner and better with plugs than
with hydrogen. (Maria Shriver loved seeing a PHEV in early 2007
http://www.calcars.org/photos-people ).

California's energy agencies, mandated to seek ways to reduce
petroleum dependency and greenhouse gas emissions as soon as
possible, increasingly recognize the near-term potential of PHEVs
that use today's technology and infrastructure. In the roundup that
follows, we describe two major steps forward; a new Energy
Commission-sponsored PHEV Research Center with a pathbreaking
academic study and a market test, and significant evolution at the
Air Resources Board.


FIVE-PART PACKAGE
1. UC Davis PHEV Research Center description
2. Excerpts from speeches at the Center's launch event -- statements
show notable advances in the depth of support for PHEVs.
3. A description of the Center's first study and our list of
interesting findings.
4. An update on the status of California's ZEV program and a
background article on that program.
5. The San Francisco Chronicle's report on the PHEV Center.


1. UC DAVIS PHEV RESEARCH CENTER
The State of California has begun to direct significant funding to
PHEV-related projects. The new Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle
Research Center http://phev.its.ucdavis.edu/ at the University of
California at Davis launched with $3M from the Energy Commission's
Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program plus $1.8M from the
Air Resouces Board. "Its goals are to provide technology and policy
guidance to the state, and to help solve research questions and
address commercialization issues for PHEVs."

SORTING OUT THE INSTITUTIONS: The PHEV Research Center, part of the
Institute for Transportation Studies (ITS) has a research focus. It's
distinct from Prof. Andy Frank's Hybrid Electric Vehicle Center
http://www.team-fate.net (a vehicle-design program which is also
part of ITS). And it's separate from the UC Irvine Advanced Power and
Energy Program http://www.apep.uci.edu and the UC Berkeley Institute
of Transportation Studies http://www.its.berkeley.edu -- each of
which just received one Toyota-converted prototype Prius PHEV for
evaluation in partnership with the carmaker (Berkeley for customer
experiences and Irvine for technical evaluation) -- see Toyota's
detailed press release (including technical specs) at
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,220740.shtml
and Reuters report
http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN0937759520071110 .

The new Davis center has launched with a bang, publishing the world's
first study of PHEV drivers and conducting extended market and
driving data studies, partnering with the American Automobile
Association of Northern California to give 100 typical households
PHEVs for two months. It's starting with one Hymotion/A123Systems
conversion, to be followed early next year by nine second-generation
Hymotion conversions -- redesigned, crash-tested with appropriate
government approvals.

NO, YOU CAN"T VOLUNTEER! Davis and AANC have received hundreds of
inquiries from early adopters eager to be part of the program. But
this will be a rigorous, randomized academic study of consumer
behavior and attitudes.

ADVISORY COUNCIL: The Center will be guided by representatives that
so far include from GOVERNMENT: California Energy Commission, South
Coast Air Quality Management District, US Department of Energy;
AUTOMAKERS: Chrysler, Nissan (Ford recently joined); UTILITES:
Sacramento Municipal, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California
Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric and the Electric Power Research Institute.

While the Council is all large institutions, the Center's staff has
been in close communication with the "less official" community of
PHEV advocates -- many listed at http://www.calcars.org/partners.html
-- and future cooperative efforts are possible.


2. PHEV CENTER LAUNCH EVENT SPEECHES

PROFESSOR TOM TURRENTINE, DIRECTOR OF THE NEW PHEV CENTER:
PHEVs are one of the promising ways we can reach that goal of
reducing greenhouse gases by 80%. UC Davis has a long history with
PHEVs: Dr Andy Frank here has been working on them for 30 years,
showing everybody that this vehicle is a practical and possible
technology that we can move forward with. Our research at the Center
will answer key questions about how PHEVs will fit with consumer
lifestyles and preferences, how Californians will use them, how they
will it fit in the marketplace. We're studying how vehicle
technologies will work here, including the batteries and detailed
analysis of the environmental benefits.

We have Initial findings from our first study, the PHEV Innovator
Study. This was the first consumer research study conducted on actual
PHEV drivers -- on how these pioneers have been using their vehicles,
when and where they charge, the benefits they felt PHEVs have for
them, and enhancements they'd like to see on PHEVs in the future.

COMMISSIONER JIM BOYD, VICE CHAIR OF THE CALIFORNIA ENERGY
COMMISSION, AND CHAIR OF THE PHEV CENTER ADVISORY BOARD.
In 2005 we put into our Energy Strategy Report the fact that PHEVs
showed a great promise in California's future, against the advice of
most people. We gambled, we won, because look what's happened in the
last two years with regard to plug-in hybrid vehicles.

So it particularly pleases us that we were able to fund the Center
here, participate in its activities and see the delivery of these
vehicles. Tom mentioned Andy Frank. I've known him for almost all
those 30 years. He has been persistent, almost to a fault sometimes,
in his support of this technology and I'm glad he's around to see his
efforts rewarded and us moving forward with this kind of technology.

The Energy Commission is committed to funding energy research and
commercialization efforts that we think will pay dividends to the
people of CA. That goes hand in glove with the passage of all the
legislation in CA, AB32, AB1007 and now AB118 that was just put into
law by the Governor, which will provide both my Agency and the Air
Resources Board with funding to help facilitate even more work on
alternative fuels and alternative vehicle technologies.

I challenge the federal government to help match the kind of progress
that California has shown that it can do. This is the beginning of a
very good relationship regarding an old form of transportation fuel
that once again we see will be extremely viable in the future.

ANDREW TANG, SENIOR DIRECTOR, THE SMART ENERGY WEB AT PG&E
In this new energy economy, we see the utility sector, the
transportation sector and the technology sector all converging to
meet our country's energy needs in a carbon-constrained environment.

We understand that realizing the ultimate vision in unleashing the
potential opportunity and benefits that this really provides to
consumers is going to require significant partnerships with people
like UC Davis and with commercial enterprises. Earlier this year we
partnered with Google to demonstrate V2G at their Mountain View
headquarters, and we're currently in a research partnership with
Tesla Motors to test the ancillary grid benefits and what we call
smart charging technology. And today we're very excited to be
partnered here with the UC Davis PHEV Research Center.

Through collaboration, our economy may someday be driven by electric
cars, reducing our dependence on carbon-based fuels and helping to
reduce CO2 emissions. Think about it. Today over 50% of the
electricity that PG&E delivers to our customers comes from
carbon-free sources. If we can replace petroleum with electricity, we
really stand a chance to have a very significant impact on climate
change. However, in order for this vision to happen, there needs to
be widespread adoption of PHEVs.

ALEXANDRA MOREHOUSE, SENIOR VP, CALIFORNIA STATE AUTO ASSOCIATION
We first got wind of how important this was when we brought the
subject up to our 4.5 million members, and we found they were really
overwhelmingly interested in alternative fuel vehicles, in particular
in getting practical advice about them from us. We've created a
Greenlight Initiative in response to what all our members across
California have been asking for from us.

We've already converted our fleet vehicles to hybrid, and this is the
nest step for us -- getting these hybrids plugged in. And it's also
the next step for getting out the next kind of practical kind of
advice and experience to our members in terms of getting our members
involved with the study so they can drive these vehicles for eight
weeks and begin to make the leap, which is really what our mission
is, to get people to think, "Well, I could do this, I could drive a
hybrid, I could drive a plug-in, it's really not that different, and
it has a practical application in my life." This is the next logical
step. It's very exciting, We've had a groundswell from our members,
and were really looking forward to taking it to the next step by
plugging it in.


3. PHEV CENTER'S FIRST STUDY
We encourage anyone interested in real-life experiences of hybrid
drivers to read this first-of-its-kind 32-page report, "Driving
Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles: Reports from U.S. Drivers of HEVs
converted to PHEVs, circa 2006-07," by Dr. Kenneth S. Kurani,
Associate Researcher, Dr. Reid R. Heffner, Senior Analyst, Dr. Thomas
S. Turrentine, Director.

ABSTRACT: This report examines early users' experiences with plug-in
hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). At the time this study was conducted in
winter and spring of 2007, PHEVs were not yet commercialized. Still,
Americans were becoming aware of PHEVs and 25 to 30 vehicles
converted from hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) to PHEVs were on the
road. In interviews with 23 drivers of these vehicles we explored how
they used and recharged their vehicles. We also discussed their
recommendations for future PHEV designs, and investigated how they
think about PHEVs, including the benefits and drawbacks they
perceive. While today's PHEV drivers may not represent either
mainstream American car buyers now or future buyers of PHEVs, their
behavior and viewpoints offer clues about how PHEVs will be received
and used by other consumers and may shape both the PHEV technologies
offered in the future and the reasons why future consumers value PHEVs.

OUR ROLE AND REACTION: CalCars helped identify drivers to be
interviewed; we ourselves participated as subjects; and we welome
this first documentation the impact of actual PHEVs. The study is
unusually broad -- written by an anthropologist, a consumer
researcher and an MBA, it highlights psychological and linguistic
themes as well as technical and practical issues.

It also provides automakers with free market research we hope will
help them design cars that succeed in the marketplace! CalCars
intends to find ways to organize the experience of the increasing
number of drivers and owners of PHEVs in ways that will contribute to
those goals. (At http://www.calcars.org/where-phevs-are.html we list
67 passenger vehicle PHEVs; we're working to get data on the other
50-75 we know about for that list (the Google Map version currently
lags the list by about 25 entries).

INTERESTING ASPECTS AND OBSERVATIONS:
* 23 drivers, 75% of whom had previous experience driving
battery-electric vehicles (so an unusual group!)
* 15 vehicles, 8 by EnergyCS, 2 by Hymotion, 5 through the EAA-PHEV
"do-it-yourself" community at http://www.priusplus.org .
* Designers need to consider that All-Electric Range (AER),
especially at least 20 miles, is associated with images of a positive future.
* Statistics about average commuter distance may not be an effective
way to estimate PHEV market demand.
* Full instrumentation and informative display have symbolic
importance and trains drivers.
* The exciting "100+MPG" experience has emotional importance and
meanings to drivers; high MPG most epitomizes how people see PHEVs.
* Consumers have complex expectations about range and motivations for
when they recharge.
* The "idea" of saving money is more compelling than actual
calculations of payback among buyers of PHEVs (or HEVs).
* Conversions have build high expectations; limited availability has
led to frustrations directed at automakers.
* Home emergency power may be seen as a major secondary benefit of PHEVs.

At http://phev.its.ucdavis.edu/research see the Center's research
plans and find a link to this report:


4. CALIFORNIA AIR RESOURCES BOARD ZEV REGULATION
Though the ZEV Mandate is a bare shadow of its original form, it
continues to evolve. The regulations are almost impossible for
non-insiders to understand -- let alone comment on. In recent years,
the regulations were repeatedly modified especially to placate
carmakers that didn't want to build plug-in cars and gradually
obtained credits for building hybrid cars and small numbers of
high-priced fuel-cell prototypes. The California Electric
Transporation Coalition (CalETC, formed by the state's largest
utilities), groups like Plug In America and the ZEV Alliance (a
coalition of health, environmental and public interest groups) have
been working to change that direction, and last year the ARB held a
Technology Symposium to evaluate the future direction of the program
(see our multiple reports in CalCars-News).

GOOD BACKGROUND INTRODUCTION: In addition to the narratives in the
film, "Who Killed the Electric Car" and the book by Sherry Boschert,
"Plug-In Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America," learn about
the ZEV regulations in an excellent piece of reporting, "California
to Rule On Fate of EVs," by Peter Fairley, published in the November
issue of the IEEE Spectrum. The article begins, "EVs Will Be Back:
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger talks up his states's
zero-emission vehicles program." The report starts with details on
Phoenix Motorcars' plans for selling ZEV credits to automakers (which
we have been told the company is now downplaying as a strategy).
Halfway through, we read,

But battery EV proponents say that thanks to today's climate --
economic, political, and atmospheric--some consumers are ready to
trade range for a car that costs less to run and produces less
pollution. CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols agrees. "People are willing
to take a chance on a car that doesn't necessarily do everything the
old Taurus used to do," she says. Nichols says she is especially
bullish about plug-in hybrids -- which could be good news for that
technology's backers if it translates into new policy.

The Spectrum text is at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/nov07/5657 and
you can see the graphic pages at
http://online.qmags.com/IEEESM1107/default.aspx?pg=12&mode=2 (click
on the pages to enlarge and read them online). And you can read more
about it at the PlugsAndCars blog,
http://plugsandcars.blogspot.com/2007/11/ieee-will-carb-take-part-in-plug-in-car\
.html

ARB'S #2 EXECUTIVE ON PHEVS
Since the departure of Executive Officer Catherine Witherspoon, Tom
Cackette, Chief Deputy Executive Officer, who has been at ARB since
1982, served in that role until the the recent appointment of James
Goldstene. At Friday's handover by Toyota of two Priuses, Cackette
said, "Vehicles like this are advantageous because they don't require
infrastructure like you find are needed for other alternative-fuel
vehicles....You can plug them into any regular outlet to charge, and
you're ready to go, so there's no (fuel) stations or special sites
needed to make them practicable." (Long Beach Press Telegram report
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_7422623 )

NEW ARB STAFF REPORT JUST RELEASED: On November 9, the Air Resources
Board staff released its latest proposed modifications of the ZEV
regulations to begin to level a playing field which currently, for
instance, gives fuel cell vehicles a 10x credit advantage over an
electric vehicle. They're a mixture of promising improvements
stemming from the long-awaited recognition of the need to modify the
regulations to take into account the likelihood that PHEVs and EVs
will supplant fuel-cell cars in automakers' development plans, plus
disappointing continuation of previous unproductive concessions to
automakers. The nine-page document proposes a new "Silver+" credit
category for PHEVs and hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines
(which have been called "the worst of both worlds"). Read a report
and comments at Green Car Congress,
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/11/california-arb-.html .

STAFF DESCRIPTION: The Air Resources Board has posted a new concept
paper outlining proposed amendments to the zero emission vehicle or
ZEV regulation. In developing the new proposals, staff started with
the range of proposed amendments heard at the July 24, 2007 workshop,
and considered comments received at the workshop and in dozens of
subsequent meetings with affected stakeholders. To access the
concept paper, or for more information about the ZEV Program visit
the following web site link:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/zevreview/zevreview.htm Staff
invites your comments on these proposals in writing or through
individual meetings. In order to inform our regulatory process, we
request that comments be submitted or meetings be conducted by
November 26, 2007.


5. SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE'S REPORT ON THE PHEV CENTER.
100 California households to test super-high-mileage hybrid cars
Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/30/BAUIT3FBN.DTL&tsp=1

One hundred Northern California households will be given the use of
experimental, plug-in hybrid cars next year in the first widespread
consumer testing of the super-high-mileage vehicles in the nation,
under a program announced Tuesday by UC Davis transit planners and an
auto club.

The households, to be chosen from the ranks of more than 4 million
members of AAA of Northern California, will each have an eight-week
loan of a Toyota Prius converted to run on batteries that are twice
as powerful as those originally installed by the automaker.

The cars can easily get 100 miles per gallon on their combined power
from electric motors and gasoline engines. They also spew out far
fewer environment-harming emissions than even conventional hybrid cars.

"This is the first large consumer study of plug-in hybrids," said Tom
Turrentine, director of the Plug-In Hybrid Center at the UC Davis
Institute of Transportation Studies. "We're the advance guard of
putting a lot of these (cars) in households." The program is
scheduled to start in the spring of 2008.

Plug-in hybrids are in their infancy - perhaps 50 of them are in
fleets maintained by utility companies, universities and other
organizations - and so far there has been no large testing of how
they work in everyday use.

Normal hybrids use a combination of electric and gasoline power to
eke out better mileage than gasoline-only cars, largely by having the
electric motor take over in situations where the car does not require
much power, such as crawling down a city street or in a freeway
traffic jam. The electric power is created by on-board generators and
regenerative braking, freeing the car from the leash of a power cord
and hours of recharging that purely electric cars required.

Plug-in advocates say the converted hybrids constitute the best of
all worlds: By equipping the car with more powerful batteries and
then letting them recharge overnight, the next day's journey can be
done mostly on electric power, saving the car's gasoline engine for
more stressful situations such as zooming onto a freeway or for
long-distance travel.

The downside of plug-in hybrids, critics say, is that the converted
cars, by using household electricity for daily recharging, are simply
sucking more energy from the already polluting coal-fired power grid,
and that in the long run this is just as bad for the environment as
having a gasoline-only car.

Turrentine conceded that the United States "should clean up its
coal-fired plants," but said that in states such as California, which
gets much of its power from cleaner sources such as hydroelectric
plants, plug-in hybrids will only help.

The 10 Priuses to be used in the test are being turned into plug-ins
by Pat's Garage, a San Francisco firm that has been doing such
conversions for several years. Each car costs about $15,000 to
convert. The program is being funded by the California Energy
Commission and the state Air Resources Board.

Driving a plug-in Prius is much like driving a normal one. The major
difference is that the car is more silent than a conventional hybrid
because its electric motor is whirring away far more often than the
gasoline engine.

"We're going to be interviewing households every week," Turrentine
said. "We want to know how people respond to the car. Are they
excited because it is cheaper (to operate)? Are they excited because
they are saving the world?"

The guidelines for choosing test households are pretty simple: The
program is seeking people who have a garage, carport or parking place
with a nearby 110-volt outlet and who will not only be willing to
plug in their hybrids every night but will remember to do it.
Turrentine also said they will be seeking people with daily roundtrip
commutes from 20 to about 120 miles.

He said the type of households chosen for the plug-in exercise will
have different lifestyles - "it could range from a typical American
family to a young urban dweller to a retired couple living in Tahoe."

UC Davis officials said AAA plans to select program participants from
the association's member rolls, rather than open it up to volunteers.

AAA senior vice president Alexandra Morehouse said her organization
got involved because "our members are overwhelmingly interested in
alternative-fuel vehicles. Our mission (in this program) is to get
people to think, 'I could drive a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.
It's not that different, and it could be part of my life.' "

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --