Plenary Panel

Moderator: Mark Duvall, Electric Power Research Institute

Nancy Gioia
Director, Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle Programs, Ford Motor Company

• Ford is working on various electrified vehicles

James Boyd
Vice Chair & Commissioner, California Energy Commission

• Working on various programs, including PHEV

Dan Sperling
Automotive Board Member, California Air Resources Board

• 7 point policy action plan:
• 1. Fuel suppliers: Low carbon fuel standard
• 2. Vehicle suppliers: Strong GHG and MPG standards
• 3. CARB board felt ZEV program was too soft and complicated and next year expect to simply and strenghten the requirement, maybe by an order of magnitude by 2015.
• 4. Consumers: Stronger incentives to buy clean cars, "fee-bate"
• 5. Reform transportation and land use to favor walking, city transit and neighborhood EVs
• 6. R&D: Need more basic science research on batteries, need to go beyond Li-ion
• 7. Price floor for gasoline, say $4 per gallon

Ed Kjaer
Director of Electric Transportation, Southern California Edison Company

• How to connect electrified cars to the grid
• Sweet spot for PHEV to be 2010 to 2012
• Utilities need to move from a passive relationship to the customer to much more of an active relationship with an informed customer
• Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) calls for 20% renewable electricity by 2020 and 30% 2030
• Rate choices that are coming: Time of use rates, critical peak pricing, peak time rebates, programmable communication thermostats
• Irony today is that the only way utilities know when the power is out is when customers call
• V2G is a long way off. A lot of grid control needs to be implemented before it will work everywhere
• Quote: "Energy storage is a fundamental game changer in the energy industry"
• Looking at occasional peak shaving or emergency backup with the home, but not past the meter
• CA has policy to require net zero energy homes by 2020 and stationary batteries will be necessary for this along with PV cells

Questions

• How to replace gasoline tax for road maintenance when electric cars become more prevalent? Answer: This is a problem, maybe implementing new taxes, higher gasoline taxes or higher car registration fees with "fee-bates" for EVs.
• How to build out municipal EV infrastructure, including charging for apartment dwellers that don't have a fixed place to park their car? Answer: There is debate if we even need public charging, but probably for EVs but maybe not PHEVs. There is already a start with the infrastructure put in the 1990s.
• Viability of upstart EV companies? Niches? Answer: Lots of barriers and risks to bringing out new full sized vehicles. China sold 14 million electric motorcycles and bikes last year so there is opportunity in niches.