Over the past 100 years, we have become increasingly dependent on our cars for meeting life’s most basic needs. For most Americans, getting to and from work, bringing food home from the grocery store, or going to the doctor means using one’s car. This reliance on the automobile, and on the petroleum-powered internal combustion engine in particular, comes with significant costs. Our dependence on oil makes our overall economy and household budgets highly vulnerable to volatile oil prices. The pollutant emissions from our vehicles contribute to unhealthy air and global climate change. As the search for oil moves to more remote and difficult-to-access locations, the risk of serious accidents increases, as demonstrated by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And defending our access to oil is a great burden to our nation’s finances, our military men and women, and their families.

Vehicles powered by electricity have the potential to reduce many of these problems. In most places, electric drive lowers the smog-forming and global warming pollution associated with vehicle use; and when powered by renewable resources, electric vehicles can nearly eliminate such pollution from vehicular operation. Electric vehicles powered by a clean electricity grid offer a key pathway to achieving the greater than 80 percent reduction in global warming pollution we need by mid-century to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Powered by domestically produced electricity, electric vehicles (EVs) could be a significant part of reducing our oil dependence.

Today, we are starting to see EVs enter the market as the result of investments and policies to develop vehicles with zero tailpipe emissions. In 2011, U.S. consumers could choose from two mass-produced electric-drive vehicles made by two major auto manufacturers: the fully electric Nissan LEAF, powered solely by batteries, and the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt, powered both by batteries and an internal combustion engine. In 2012, we expect to see additional options for consumers, including the plug-in versions of the Ford Fusion and Toyota Prius hybrids as well as the Honda Fit and Ford Focus batteryelectric vehicles. The number of vehicles capable of being powered wholly or in part by electricity will continue to grow, as automakers plan to introduce more than 30 electricdrive models over the next five years (Baum & Associates 2010).

Download full text