Continued from yesterday/Part 2

US cars in 2050 could be using 80 percent less gasoline

The US could cut oil consumption for light-duty vehicles and greenhouse-gas emissions, if it adopts policies and encourages key technologies, a new National Research Council report says.

By Laurent Belsie, Staff writer / March 19, 2013

"...One reason is that improvements in battery technology, which should reduce current costs by 80 percent, might not be enough to make BEVs mass-market appeal. "A battery large enough for a 300-mile real-world range would still present significant weight and volume penalties and probably could not be recharged in much less than 30 minutes," the study concludes. "Therefore, BEVs may be used mainly for local travel rather than as all-purpose vehicles."

Substantial cuts in oil use and GHG emissions will require considerable federal intervention, because the four pathways are more expensive than today's conventional cars. So the study recommends that the government set even higher CAFE standards beyond 2025; offer rebates for high-mileage vehicles; impose taxes on low-mileage models; increase gasoline taxes or otherwise provide a floor price for gasoline so alternative fuels can compete; fund research and development on vehicle efficiency, alternative fuels create, and carbon capture and storage, which could help reduce GHG emissions; and fund demonstration projects for such things as low-carbon hydrogen, carbon capture and sequestration, and alternative-fuel infrastructure.

But the government efforts should stop short of the commercial stage, the report warns. "The commercialization of fuel and vehicle technologies is best left to the private sector in response to performance-based policies, or policies that target reductions in GHG emissions or petroleum use rather than specific technologies."

Clean-energy and environmental groups embraced the findings of the NRC study.

"It highlights the need for an aggressive and concerted approach to pursue fuel efficiency and alternative vehicle fuels, like electricity," Gina Coplon-Newfield, director of the Sierra Club's green fleets and electric vehicles initiative, wrote in an email. "If we are to avert the worst of climate change, then automakers, government agencies, and companies with large vehicle fleets will need to invest in vehicle technologies that will allow us to slash and then wean ourselves from fossil fuels altogether."