WASHINGTON — Electric vehicles may still seem like expensive space-age technology to some drivers, but Senate legislation aims to make them as common as minivans in neighborhoods across the country.
A bill to promote deployment of plug-in electric vehicles, which now cost anywhere from $32,000 to about $100,000, was approved Wednesday by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
It would spend about $10 billion in federal funds to boost incentives for electric vehicle purchases, increase number of charging stations, develop “model electric vehicle communities” across the country and provide technical help to the country’s communities in planning for electrification, among other means.
The goal is to put the nation on a path to electrify half its cars and trucks by 2030, which supporters say would cut U.S. demand for oil by about one-third.
“We send almost a billion dollars a day away to purchase foreign oil and some of it goes to strength areas that don’t like us very much,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. “I think we’re going to still use fossil fuels in the future, but we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and the way to do that is to move toward an electric fleet.”
Current electric cars:
• Tesla Roadster – electric vehicle – $109,000, gets 200 miles to the charge
• Chevrolet Volt – plug-in hybrid – $40,000, gets 40 miles per charge, then switches to gas
• Nissan Leaf – electric vehicle – $32,800, gets 100 miles to the charge
• Toyota Prius – plug-in hybrid – $22,800, gets 13 miles per charge, then switches to gas
Some of what’s expected in 2011:
• BMW ActiveE – electric vehicle – price TBD, gets 100 miles to the charge
• Coda Electric Sedan – electric vehicle – $40,000, gets 100 miles to the charge
• Fisker Karma – plug-in hybrid – $87,000, gets 50 miles per charge, then switches to gas
• Ford Focus Electric – $30, 000, gets 100 miles to the charge
Source: plugincars.com
One of the ways the bill plans to do this is through the “model electric communities.” Various communities would compete for federal money allotted to created charging infrastructure, help cities update zoning and building codes and convert government fleets to electric vehicles; the Senate bill would allow up to 15 cities to apply for these grants, each worth up to $250 million.
The Senate bill also proposes point-of-sale rebates for the purchase of electric vehicles in the communities that get the grants: an extra $2,500 in addition to the existing $7, 500 tax credit.
Not everyone on the energy committee was as enthusiastic about the bill as Dorgan; Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she was “reluctant” to support the bill.
“I’m worried this will act as a disincentive for other technology that may be out there that may be better than this, but at the end of the day, I think we all agree we need to reduce our reliance on foreign oil,” Murkowksi said.
In all, there are approximately 40,000 all-electric vehicles in the U.S. today, according to the Clean Fleet Report.