10 most important things about the Senate’s Electrifying Bill,
or why Electric Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010 matters

After 75 pages of legislative fluff one can see that the BP spill is forcing Senate to act. The proposed bill’s main agenda is to move electric cars into mainstream America. Below are some of the most important points and the next steps:

1. The original bill was set to allocate $11 billion, it is now scaled back to $3.5 billion
2. Much of the proposed solutions are taken from EV Coalition’s Roadmap
3. 15 chosen communities will get $150 mill each to install charging infrastructure
4. Add $2,500 Tax credits to EVs, on top of the current $7,500
5. Extend the 50% infrastructure Tax Credit to 2016
6. Creates bonds for Non-profit & Gov orgs to pay for infrastructure
7. Establishes Codes and Standards for buildings, utility and safety decision makers
8. Significant investment into the workforce training and public education & outreach
9. Federal Fleet EV procurement
10. Analyze & disseminate data to implement as lessons learned in the future

We created a Word Cloud of the EV Deployment Act, visualize it for yourself ( Image to the right).

Two Electrifying Bills in progress:

Last week the House and the Senate introduced separate but similar bills in support of Electric Cars. Both are called “Electric Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010″, both have the same outcome but go about it a bit differently. They will each allocate about $10 billion to fund charging infrastructure and increase consumer tax credits.

House Will:
- Give $800 mill to 5 regions
- Increase the Fed tax rebate for EV purchase to $9.5K
- Give Tax Credits for the purchase & install of EV infrastructure up to $50K
- Representatives Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) introduced the bill.

Senate Will:
- Give $250 mill to 15 cities
- Increase the Fed Tax Rebate for EVs to $10K
- Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Jeff Merkley(D-Ore.) presented the bill.
Both bills look at reducing the nation’s dependency on Oil and follow the recommendations set forth by the EV Coalition earlier this year. The exact language isn’t available yet, the bills are in the markup stage which means they will look completely different from the original documents. Several large players are weighting pro and con, the BP spill is rather unfortunately helping to push it along.

Mariana Gerzanych 06/17/10

Nissan’s Good Sold Out News

Carlos Ghosn made an announcement that the Electric Car LEAF is sold out of the first year production allotment at 13,000. A month later stating that they increased the production, and more LEAFs will be available. So far the word is that Nissan will be building half a million LEAFs a year starting 2013.

Another big announcement is the Toyota/Tesla (TnT) partnership of producing sub $30K electric vehicles in a recently acquired Nummi plant capable of also producing half a mil EVs a year. TnT is looking to have a bright future if everything in the deal goes well.

There might not be a fierce war between the range extender (GM Volt) and all Electric vehicles (LEAF, Tesla) after all, there is enough demand to buy out the next 4 years of production and by then there will be enough choices for people to buy whatever best fits their needs: a range extender with 20 to 60 miles all electric, or 80 to 300 miles all electric range, and everything in between depending how much you will want to spend.

Mariana Gerzanych 05/29/10

Electric Car Incentives are Spreading

A bill to provide Financial Incentives for Electric Vehicles died in May ’09, but its offsprings survived and spread into several states. Here is a summary:

Mariana Gerzanych 05/09/10

Turning the new LEAF

Nissan is starting to accept refundable $99 deposits for their Electric Car LEAF. Only the 115,000 people that signed up on Nissan’s web site will be allowed to part with their money at this time, the rest of the world can pull out their credit cards only on May 15.

LEAF will initially be sold in 5 markets that are part of the EV Project: San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Phoenix/Tucson and Nashville. Each market will get 1,000 cars during the first 6 months of the EV Project, to get one of the first LEAFs drivers will have to go through a screening process. Some of the prerequisites are: a house that meets the electrical requirements, home broadband connection with a signed waiver to transmit all of the driving data, qualifying zip code and driving more than 12,000 miles a year. In return the ‘Chosen’ will get a free 220V home charger installed and be the star of the neighborhood.

If you don’t become one of the 5,000 ‘Chosen’, don’t despair more LEAFs are coming. In 2011 Nissan will manufacture 50K EVs and by 2014 they are promising 200K. Interestingly, Nissan announced plans to enter the EV market 2 years after the GM Volt announcement. Volt has nearly 40K people signed up while the LEAF boasts 115K subscribers, and will be released a month earlier. The two vehicles are in different EV categories but are compared by the media quite often. Time will show who wins.

Mariana Gerzanych 04/22/10

Electric Power Drama

Electricity providers and consumers have had a good marriage since the 1800s, small breakdowns here and there, sometimes scandals, regulation and deregulation but overall it’s been even keeled. That is until consumers decided they want more, demanding more electricity for their new toys: Electric Cars. Utilities ignored the whim for a decade but are starting to take notice. A study of EV impact on the grid done by ISO/RTO (ummm Power Companies) shows a positive outlook of what’s to come.

The report is unprintable 120 pages, here is the gist of it:

• Spread out EV charging would reduce the impact on electric load
• Power companies will need new tools to manage the demand from EVs

EVs will follow Prius sales, clustering by geographical areas, mainly North East and West coasts. This will put more strain on some Utilities and not the others, especially if all those EVs will charge at the same time. Assuming Obama gets his wish for 1 million EVs in 5 years, and everyone plugged in simultaneously: 3,800 MW of additional electricity will be needed, spread the charging over 12 hours and the demand drops to 500 MW. Here is the link to the research study: http://bit.ly/bkCGUg.

The report isn’t earth shattering, it does validate other studies and shows that Electricity providers are starting to think about EVs. It’s a bit on the conservative side, the Grid better be prepared for the 1 million EV army earlier than 2017.

Mariana Gerzanych 04/02/10

A city for Electric Car

The age of Electric Car battles have begun, EV manufacturers are declaring their territories left and right. Thus far GM Volt announced their initial markets by Utility: DTE Energy in Michigan, Pepco and Dominian in Washington DC, as well as PG&E and Southern California Edison in CA. Nissan LEAF, is concentrating in 6 markets from the start: San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Tucson and Nashville. After the introduction they will follow in the same cities as their LEAF Tour . Think City EV went even further and announced their list of EV ready cities, taking into account purchase and usage incentives –HOV lane access and infrastructure support, as well as market fit, including factors such as hybrid sales, traffic congestion, air quality, and renewable electricity sources.