Electric cars: Leading the charge

August 24, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

David Sandalow starts his five-mile commute each day by unplugging an orange extension cord connecting his Toyota Prius hybrid to an outlet in his brick carport.

His Prius, which was converted two years ago to allow him to recharge the battery from an electric outlet, gets more than 80 miles per gallon and lets him drive 30 miles on a single charge. He fills up his car with gasoline about once every month or two, an oddity in a transportation sector long dominated by the internal- combustion engine.

“If you’re thirsty, you can get a Diet Coke or orange juice or water. If you’re hungry, you can get a hamburger or hot dog or a fruit plate. If you want to drive someplace, you only have one choice. You can use gasoline or petroleum-based products,” says Sandalow, the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for policy and international affairs. “That doesn’t seem strange to us ... but it’s odd. It’s strange that we are utterly dependent on this one fuel source for mobility.”

If American consumers begin to shift to electric cars this decade, Sandalow will be one of the government’s driving forces behind the change. Crafting policy from the vantage point of an electric-car driver himself, the former Brookings Institution scholar has helped shape the Obama administration’s ambitious plan to pump billions of dollars into partnerships aimed at developing cars running on electric power, creating an advanced-battery industry and helping communities prepare for the transition.

President Barack Obama has pledged to bring 1 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to U.S. highways by 2015, and he turned to the nascent battery industry as one of the hallmarks of his economic-recovery plan. Electric vehicles built by General Motors and Nissan are arriving in showrooms later this year, and every major auto manufacturer is working on an electric strategy, encouraged by federal funding and tax incentives.

Plenty of obstacles remain: the lithium-ion batteries expected to power electric vehicles are extremely expensive, even when the costs are reduced by a $7,500-per-vehicle federal tax credit. The government recently estimated that a battery with a 100-mile range costs about $33,000, although federal stimulus funds could bring the costs down to $10,000 by the end of 2015. Other concerns remain about the durability and longevity of the batteries.

The government’s projections could be rosy, some analysts contend, and the program could create more capacity for building the batteries than consumers demand. “It definitely is a risky investment. We don’t think that the sales of electric vehicles will be as high as the government is hoping,” said Mike Omotoso, J.D. Power’s senior manager of global powertrain.

But with concerns about global warming and oil politics, the administration sees an opportunity in electric cars, and Sandalow is leading the charge.

Obama pushed a $2.4 billion grant program to develop next-generation batteries, which could lead to 500,000 batteries a year by late 2014. A 2007 energy law, meanwhile, has led to billions in loans for automakers to retool their plants for fuel-efficient vehicles, including electric cars.