Panel 8: Market penetration of EV, HEV, PHEV and their batteries

For the past two decades, petroleum consumption has been steadily increasing while domestic production continued to decline. The world oil production is predicted to peak in the next couple of decades; a dramatic fluctuation of gasoline price is being witnessed recently; fuel and vehicle emissions standards are getting more tightened than ever. All indicates that we are standing at a turning point in the automotive industry. The next generation automobiles should be designed based on a sustainable transportation model with considerably improved fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions, which eventually use renewable fuels as the primary energy source. Electric vehicles, such as EV, HEV and PHEV, have been vastly promoted as potential technologies to reduce petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as improving power grid management via vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services. The market volume of these technologies, however, has never reached an effective level so as to impact oil consumption and GHG emissions. Therefore, the primary focus of this panel will be in defining sustainable transportation models for EV, HEV, PHEV and their batteries to facilitate their market penetration. The panel will also discuss and analyze the positive and negative factors affecting market penetration, such as governmental regulations, battery technology / vehicle engineering challenges, and total cost of ownership.