Public policies are needed to overcome challenges facing the adoption of electric vehicles in corporate and government fleets, according to a group of industry leaders that met in Washington, D.C. this week.
The Electrification Coalition released the Fleet Electrification Roadmap, a comprehensive analysis of the business case for electric-drive technology adoption among the more than 16 million commercial, corporate, and government fleet vehicles in the United States.
“Fleet electrification alone will not solve our pressing energy security challenges, but by bringing costs down, it will provide a critical boost to the consumer electric vehicle market,” Coalition Member Frederick W. Smith, Chairman, President, and CEO of FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX), said.
The Fleet Roadmap is geared toward demonstrating targeted opportunities in which the lower operating costs of electric drive vehicles, coupled with the operational norms of commercial and government fleets, could make adoption of PHEVs and EVs highly attractive.
The report includes a detailed examination of commercial and government fleets, highlighting common practices that could make them significant early adopters of EVs and PHEVs. The Fleet Roadmap also identifies the most significant technological challenges facing fleet operators, and recommends targeted public policies to help overcome those challenges, including:
- Tax credits for light-duty PHEVs and EVs deployed in fleets
- Tax credits for medium- and heavy-duty PHEVs and EVs
- Clean renewable energy bonds for infrastructure
- Guarantee of residual value for the first generation of lithium-ion batteries
- Federal fleet electrification, including the Postal Service
The Fleet Roadmap also presents the results of detailed total cost of ownership modeling for PHEVs and EVs in fleet applications for a number of industries. The analysis suggests that with targeted, temporary policies in place, fleet adoption of PHEVs and EVs could result in a cumulative 200,000 vehicles on the road by 2015.
PRTM, a global management consulting firm, partnered with the Electrification Coalition to provide the electric vehicle market analysis, technical input and life cycle cost modeling for the Fleet Electrification Roadmap.
The Electrification Coalition, launched in November 2009, is committed to promoting policies and actions that facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to combat the economic, environmental, and national security threats posed by our nation’s dependence on petroleum. The EC’s 2009 Electrification Roadmap proposed a set of policies in which geographic areas would compete to be selected as electrification deployment communities, in which targeted, temporary financial incentives are employed so that all of the elements of an electrified transportation system are deployed simultaneously.
On May 27, Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate introduced legislation that largely echoed the Roadmap. A version of the legislation was approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a bipartisan 19-4 vote on July 21. The proposal was shortly thereafter included in energy legislation introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Days later, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell emerged from a meeting with President Obama and said that electric vehicles represented one of the areas in which Republicans could work with the White House. After this month’s mid-term elections, both President Obama and Senator McConnell reiterated their belief that electric vehicles represent an area in which Republicans and Democrats can agree.
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even Mitch McConnell likes this ?????