A report was given to Congress last week stating that Congress should provide tax credits and renewable energy bonds to replace the 16 million fleet cars and trucks in the U.S. with electric vehicles and develop the infrastructure required to power them. An organization called Electrification Coalition (EC) announced the conclusions of their report at a news conference last week.
EC said that wants to see electric fleet vehicles utilized on a huge scale. In their report, EC makes the case that identifying and solving issues arising from modernizing fleets with electric vehicles will have spillover effects for the rest of the American population.
EC said that it hopes that both people from both political parties can agree on because it can help to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and gas. EC is made up of top executives from companies across the supply and use chain for electric vehicles, including battery makers, power companies, auto suppliers and end users, such as FedEx.
According to David Vieau, president and CEO of battery-maker A123 Systems — which, in September, opened North America’s largest lithium-ion auto battery plant, in Livonia — said the billions of dollars invested in research and production have already started to bring the price of electric vehicles down, but modernizing fleet vehicles and making sure there is a plug-in infrastructure to serve them will do even more to maximize efficiencies of scale.
Source: Detroit Free Press