The June 11-12 conference, "Plug-In Electric
Vehicles 2008: What Role for Washington"
confirmed the full emergence of PHEVs. Plug-in
cars are now seen as a compelling short- and
long-term response to the intersecting crises of
energy security, environment and
economics. Usually we're quicker to report on
events, but this time we've been slowed by other
organizational and personal priorities. In the
interest of getting information out before more
time goes by, we're not taking as much time as we
would want to shape a complete report. Below are
our notes about key themes, quotable moments and resources.

THE EVENT: A standing-room-only crowd of 350+
people at the Capitol Hill Hyatt engaged with
leading national figures from the auto industry,
utilities, the US House and Senate, and the
non-governmental/advocacy sector to advance the
campaign for plug-in cars. In addition to the
public figures, we met many staffers from
legislators' offices and organizations are
tracking developments and planning their involvement.

CONFERENCE BACKGROUND: When Google.org announced
RechargeIT in June 2007, one of its six grants
went to the Brookings Institution for a
conference on Federal Policy Plug-Ins. David
Sandalow at Brookings was then in the final
stages of his book, "Freedom From Oil," designed
to provide the next administration with the basis
for a new energy policy, in which plug-in cars
are centrally featured (order via link at
http://www.calcars.org/books.html ). By June
2008, with the remaining two presidential
candidates both having seen and spoken favorably
about PHEVs (photos at
http://www.calcars.org/phev-presidents.html ),
the conference couldn't be better timed to help shape the future.

MEDIA REPORTS reflected the new status of
PHEVs. Major stories in the Associated Press,
Wall Street Journal and elsewhere now take as an
assumption that plug-in cars will be on the
market starting in 2010. Check for yourself: as
we write this, if you search for Google
Brookings, you'll find 207 articles from the past
week at http://www.news.google.com and 117
postings at http://blogsearch.google.com .

OTHER SOURCES: The Brookings Institution's page
for the conference at
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/0611_plugin_vehicle.aspx
contains the agenda and speaker bios plus links
to videos and other resources. Google.org's page
on the event is at
http://www.google.org/recharge/dcpluginsconference/
. Meanwhile, Stefano Paris, an electric vehicle
advocate, performed a great public service in
recording and organizing the entire conference's
video streams into about eight approximately
one-hour segments. You can see the full speaker
list, links to blogs and news reports on the
event and watch the videos, with speakers for
each segment identified, at
http://www.stefanoparis.com/redirect/PlugInConference.html
. And look at reports and comments at GreenCarCongress.com and EVWorld.com .



FEDERAL EXPRESS WANTS TO ORDER PHEVs: Since
carmakers are watching the fleet market
carefully, CEO and founder Fred Smith thrilled
the audience when, in response to a question, he
agreed to put out a Request for Proposals for
PHEVs for the company (which has so far tested
one Daimler/Chrysler Sprinter van).


AUTOMAKERS FAVOR PHEVS & INCREASED FEDERAL
SUPPORT (only a bare summary of extended comments)

GENERAL MOTORS' Troy Clark, President, GM-North
America, said "GM firmly believes the long-term
solution involves a march toward the
electrification of the automobile. The debate has
already shifted. It isn't if this it's going to happen, it's really when."

FORD's Mark Fields, President, Ford North
America, said, "Plug-ins hold the potential to
dramatically reduce CO2 emissions, help address
energy security issues and contribute to economic
stability and employment." And he said, "Based on
the necessary research and development costs,
manufacturing and production investments, the
lack of a national refueling infrastructure, and
the lack of domestic battery manufacturing, it
seems clear that a business case will not evolve,
in the near term, without support from
Washington." (full text at
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080611/AUTO01/806110460 )

TOYOTA's Bill Reinert, National Manager, Advanced
Technology Group, disappointed many in the
audience, basing his comments on what theysaw as
a combination of outdated objections, disputed
studies and a business-as-usual approach. His
comments were reinforced by those from Alan
Madian, Director, LECG, a research group, who
pointed to the slow rate of adoption of new
technologies as evidence that PHEVs wouldn't be a
factor for a long time. (Speaking at the same
session, we pointed to the still-relevant 2006
report from Alliance Bernstein showing that
market penetration of hybrids and PHEVs could
constitute 72% of all cars and 85% of new car
sales by 2030 -- see http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/493.html


ELECTRIC UTILITIES ARE RATCHETING UP THEIR
SUPPORT: The presentations by Peter Darbee, Chair
and CEO of PG&E Corporation, by Tom Kuhn,
President of Edison Electric Institute, and John
Bryson, Chairman and CEO of Edison International,
made clear that our nation's utilities fully
understand the potential of electrification of
transportation to help them improve their
business operations and continue their shift to
renewable energy sources. For the utilities
(contrary to broad misconceptions), plug-in cars
are not about selling more electricity. They're
about powering vehicles more efficiently, about
using their off-peak capacity and improving their
business operations. Their presentations also
confirmed that we do need a modern power grid.
Today's patchwork regional system will not hinder
the widespread use of plug-in cars, but to fully
fulfill the potential of using renewable energy
for power generation and using parked cars for
distributed energy storage, the nation will have
to commit to new policies and facilities for transmission and control.


PHEV SOUNDBITES FROM CONFERENCE: Below are some notable statements:

* "NOPEC" -- "No on Oil--Purchase Electric Cars"
-- Tom Kuhn, President of Edison Electric
Institute (the association of investor-owned utilities) coins a new phrase.

* "For the commercialization of plug-in vehicles,
there are no technological or economic
showstoppers," -- Dan Reicher, Director of
Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google.org

* "They're a big part of the future: by 2050 or
earlier, we'll see nearly all vehicles plug in."
-- Deron Lovaas, Vehicles Director

* "This is a time when we ought to be working
together [including House and Senate, Democrats
and Republicans], --Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN)

* "The critical part of the race is going to be
electric vehicles plug-in hybrids. Like many of
you I was been pleased about the progress. The
Chevy Volt is on track for 2010… but there are
lots of things we need to do." -- Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)

* "In terms of energy policy and the potential to
shift transportation away from liquid fuels to
the electric grid, PHEVs may prove to be nothing
short of revolutionary." -- Sen.Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

* "The single most important thing we need for
development of this industry…is the passage of
something that will level the playing field
between the petroleum-based transportation system
and the electrical-based transportation system.
It is not a fair deal right now, the electrical
folks are behind the eight ball right now because
we give enormous subsidies to the oil- and
gas-based transportation system, in our tax
bills, which we're trying to repeal… But the
biggest is the subsidy we give to oil and gas
companies to allow them to treat the atmosphere
as their personal garbage dump. We do not allow
people to dump their garbage in municipal garbage
dumps for free. We would never allow an oil
company to take their slag from their refinery,
put it in a garbage truck, back it up to a city
park,and dump it in the city park for free in
unlimited amounts. But that is exactly what we
do with the most dangerous pollutant, the most
dangerous garbage, which is carbon dioxide today." -- Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA)

* "One of the things we inherited with too much
of a technology single approach, and we were
almost hydrogen all their time, and hydrogen and
biofuels have their place in keeping our eyes on
the prize of reducing oil… The question is, is
there a preferential role for electronics based
on their efficiency in delivering and storing and
releasing that energy, and we're leaning at least
on the scalable production side [toward improving
batteries]." -- Andy Karsner, Assistant Secretaty
for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US Department of Energy

* "You're my hero and my greatest concern, since
you're an entrepreneur and you want to do the
right thing, but voiding the warranty for the
largest hardware purchase that's critical to the
transportation and livelihood for most people is
not a realistic option…. As a national vision, we
want electrification of transportation to be
ubiquitous,"-- Andy Karsner (responding to a
question from David Taylor, owner of an auto shop
in Sanford, North Carolina who has converted a
Dodge RAM pickup truck to run on electricity; his
video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4Db9gPOkk was shown at the conference).

* Google.org's Dan Reicher had "two final
important thoughts: This conference has really
confirmed what many of us have long believed,
and that is that plug-ins are a real solution
whose time has finally arrived. It confirms
another important fact: we enjoy serious, serious
bipartisan support here in Washington with
respect for this technology. We cannot say that
with respect to several other major energy and
environmental issues in this town, and that's
quite important. The challenge now is how to
build a coalition to really secure critical
support for plug-ins in DC, for R&D, tax credits,
infrastructure, procurement, particularly with
the imminent arrival of a new administration and
a new Congress. And that question for Brookings
and Google is how to build that coalition, and
have it ready for election day, when
opportunities will loom even larger than today.
Please give us your thoughts. My second thought
is really a plea: when it comes to plug-ins we're
really on a roll here. Even without a coalition
in place there's so much each of us, our
companies and organizations and as individuals,
can do advance plug-in vehicles and the grid
needed to support them: information, procurement
and yes, building real plug-in cars, lots of them
in the near term. With the momentum these last
two days have produced please get out there and
make things happen. The result will indeed be electrifying."


CALCARS' TALKING POINTS At the session, "Plug-In
Vehicles: Where Are We Today?" my points were:

* We've come along way since we brought a PHEV to
Washington, DC, two years ago, showing Members of
Congress the reality that with "todays technology
and no new infrastructure," we could move to cars
fueled by "cleaner/cheaper/domestic" electricity.

* CalCars is focusing on "Successful PHEV
Commercialization ASAP" -- with the prospects of
a multiple PHEVs and EVs coming to market in
2010-2012, we want to find all ways to encourage automakers to accelerate.

* The campaign is going international and
expanding to a larger message about broad
"electrification of transportation," and
recognizing that when we look at "gallons per
mile," the bigger the vehicle the larger the
benefit. (That is, a 50 MPG hybrid saves 1
gallon/100 miles when it becomes a 100 MPG PHEV
-- but a 10 MPG truck saves 5 gallon/100 miles when it becomes a 20 MPG PHEV.)

* The largest near-term opportunity for petroleum
reduction may come from partial electrification
through conversions of substantial numbers of the
world's 900+ million internal combustion vehicles
already on the road -- a message Intel's former
CEO Andy Grove is beginning to deliver to diverse
audiences. See a preview of this focus at
http://www.calcars.org/ice-conversions.html

* We have an opportunity in the coming months to
ask both Presidential candidates to tell
automakers that whichever one of them becomes
President, the industry can count on major
initiatives for plug-in cars. See a preview of
this focus at http://www.calcars.org/phev-presidents.html.

* At other points in the first day, my message
was that "business as usual" was no longer a
prudent strategy for carmakers beause of the
global urgency of energy security and climate
change and the new market pressures and opportunities they create.


NEXT UP: SAN JOSE AND SEATTLE CONFERENCES
Plans and new developments will continue to be
discussed and announced at events in the coming
months: at the Plug-In2008 conference July 22-24
in San Jose, and at September 4-5, 2008, at the
Fifth Annual Cascadia-Microsoft Conference on
Transportation Technology in Redmond. Get info at
-- info about the San Jose event is currently at
the CalCars' events page
http://www.calcars.org/events.html and we'll soon
have details about the Washington State event as
well. And at Hybridfest in Madison, Wisconsin
July 19-20, PHEVs will be widely viewed.




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