FreedomCAR - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FCVT) is a U.S. national Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is an office within the United States Department of Energy that invests in high-risk, high-value research and development in the fields of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies...

program developing more energy efficient

Efficient energy use

Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature...

and environmentally friendly highway transportation technologies

Green vehicle

A green vehicle or environmentally friendly vehicle is a road motor vehicle that produces less harmful impacts to the environment than comparable conventional internal combustion engine vehicles running on gasoline or diesel, or one that uses alternative fuels...

that will enable the U.S to use less petroleum. The long-term aim is to develop "leap frog" technologies that will provide Americans with greater freedom of mobility and energy security

Energy security

Energy security is a term for an association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies. However, the uneven distribution of energy supplies among countries has led...

, while lowering costs and reducing impacts on the environment.

FCVT Office

The Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FCVT) is in the Department of Energy

United States Department of Energy

The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...

(DoE).

Clean Cities Program

The Clean Cities Program is part of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

's FreedomCAR & Vehicle Technologies Program.

The mission of Clean Cities is to advance the nation's economic, environmental, and energy security by supporting local decisions to adopt practices that contribute to the reduction of petroleum consumption. Clean Cities carries out this mission through a network of more than 80 volunteer coalitions, which develop public and private partnerships to promote alternative fuels and vehicles, fuel blends, fuel economy, hybrid vehicle

Hybrid vehicle

A hybrid vehicle is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to move the vehicle. The term most commonly refers to hybrid electric vehicles , which combine an internal combustion engine and one or more electric motors.-Power:...

s, and idle reduction

Idle reduction

Idle reduction is type of automobile emissions control aimed at reducing the amount of energy wasted by an idling vehicle. When a vehicle's engine is not being used to move the vehicle, it can be shut off entirely—thereby conserving fuel and reducing emissions—while other functions like accessories...

Partnerships

The goal of the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership is the development of emission- and petroleum-free cars and light truck

Light truck

Light truck or light duty truck is a U.S. classification for trucks or truck-based vehicles with a payload capacity of less than 4,000 pounds...

s. The Partnership focuses on the high-risk research needed to develop the necessary technologies, such as fuel cell

Fuel cell

A fuel cell is a device that converts the chemical energy from a fuel into electricity through a chemical reaction with oxygen or another oxidizing agent. Hydrogen is the most common fuel, but hydrocarbons such as natural gas and alcohols like methanol are sometimes used...

s and advanced hybrid propulsion systems, to provide a full range of affordable cars and light trucks that are free of foreign oil and harmful emissions — and that do not sacrifice freedom of mobility and freedom of vehicle choice.

To address the research and development needs of commercial vehicles, the goal of the 21st Century Truck Partnership is for USA trucks and buses to safely and cost-effectively move larger volumes of freight and greater numbers of passengers while emitting little or no pollution, with dramatic reduction in dependence on imported petroleum.

FreedomCAR and plug-in hybrids

In 2007 DOE

United States Department of Energy

announced that it will invest nearly $20 million in plug-in hybrid electric vehicle

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle

A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle , plug-in hybrid vehicle , or plug-in hybrid is a hybrid vehicle which utilizes rechargeable batteries, or another energy storage device, that can be restored to full charge by connecting a plug to an external electric power source...

(PHEV) research. PHEVs have the potential to displace a large amount of gasoline by delivering up to 40 miles of electric range without recharging—a distance that includes most daily roundtrip commute

Commute

Commute, commutation or commutative may refer to:* Commuting, the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work* Commutative property, a property of a mathematical operation...

s. Five projects will be cost-shared with the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), allowing up to $38 million for battery research and development. The five lithium ion battery companies selected for the projects include :

EnerDel, Inc. of Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

, Indiana– selected for an award of up to $1.25 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $2.5 million) over two years to develop cells for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs using nanophase
Nanophase material
Nanophase materials are materials that have grain sizes under 100 nanometres. They have different mechanical and optical properties compared to the large grained materials of the same chemical composition....

lithium
Lithium
Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly...

titanate
Titanate
In chemistry, titanate usually refers to inorganic compounds composed of titanium oxides. In some cases, the term is used more generally for any titanium-containing anion, e.g. [TiCl6]2- and [Ti7]2-. This article focuses on the oxides....

coupled with a high voltage Nickel
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...

-Manganese
Manganese
Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...

cathode
Cathode
A cathode is an electrode through which electric current flows out of a polarized electrical device. Mnemonic: CCD .Cathode polarity is not always negative...

material;
A123Systems
A123Systems
A123 Systems develops and manufactures advanced lithium-ion batteries and battery systems for the transportation, electric grid and commercial markets. The company has about 2,500 employees globally and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 2001 by Dr. Yet-Ming Chiang, Dr...

of Watertown, Massachusetts
Watertown, Massachusetts
The Town of Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,915 at the 2010 census.- History :Archeological evidence suggests that Watertown was inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from England...

; Compact Power Inc. in Michigan, selected for an award of up to $6.25 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $12.5 million) over three years for a project to develop batteries based on nanophase iron-phosphate
Phosphate
A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a salt of phosphoric acid. In organic chemistry, a phosphate, or organophosphate, is an ester of phosphoric acid. Organic phosphates are important in biochemistry and biogeochemistry or ecology. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in...

chemistry for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs;
Compact Power Inc. of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

, Michigan, selected for an award of up to $4.45 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $12.7 million) over three years to develop batteries for 10-mile range PHEVs using high energy and high power Manganese-spinel
Spinel
Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4. Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety.-Spinel group:...

;
3M
3M
3M Company , formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation based in Maplewood, Minnesota, United States....

in Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

, selected for an award of up to $1.14 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost share: $ 2.28 million) over two years to screen nickel/manganese/cobalt (NMC
NMC
NMC may refer to:* NMC Records, an Israeli record label and music company.* NMC Recordings, a record label and music company in the United Kingdom* National Meteorological Center, now the National Centers for Environmental Prediction...

) cathode materials through building and testing of small-sized cells;
and Johnson Controls
Johnson Controls
Johnson Controls, Inc. is a company, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. It was founded in 1885 by professor Warren S. Johnson, inventor of the first electric room thermostat....

– Saft Advanced Power Solutions of Milwaukee of Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

, WI, selected for an award of up to $4.1 million from DOE (total DOE/industry cost-share: $8.2 million) over two years to develop batteries using a nickelate/layered chemistry for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs.

The projects will focus on developing batteries and cells for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs and building small cells to test new cathode materials.

In addition, the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

will receive nearly $2 million to explore the future of PHEVs in a two-year study conducted with DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is one of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, managed by the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The main campus of the laboratory is in Richland, Washington....

(PNNL), General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

, Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

, and DTE Energy

DTE Energy

DTE Energy Co. is a Detroit, Michigan-based utility incorporated in 1995 involved in the development and management of energy-related businesses and services nationwide....

. The study will evaluate how PHEVs would share the power grid with other energy needs; monitor the American public's view of PHEVs and their driving behavior in such vehicles; assess the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; and identify how automakers can optimize PHEV design to increase performance and reduce cost. See the DOE press release, the PNNL press Release, and the Draft Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle R&D Plan on the FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies Program Web site.

A number of other efforts are also aiming to advance PHEV technologies. In early September, Google.org—the philanthropic arm of Google Inc.—offered $10 million to for-profit companies that are working to advance PHEV technologies. Meanwhile, California's Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced that it is working with Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors, Inc. is a Silicon Valley-based company that designs, manufactures and sells electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain components. It was the only automaker building and selling a zero-emission sports car, the Tesla Roadster, in serial production...

to study the remote control of the charging of electric vehicles. Such "smart charging" could allow a utility to vary the electric charging load

Load profile

In electrical engineering, a load profile is a graph of the variation in the electrical load versus time. A load profile will vary according to customer type , temperature and holiday seasons....

on its system in response to intermittent energy sources. In effect, electric vehicles would serve as a large energy storage system that utilities could direct energy to at times when ample supplies are available and the load on the electrical grid is low.

Also DOE and China's Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) signed a five-year agreement in September 2007 to support the large-scale deployment of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles in both countries.

Criticisms

With the hydrogen-focused FCVT, whose goal is decades away, the Bush Administration was criticized for ignoring any intermediate-term solutions, while funding it largely with monies redirected from other renewable-energy and energy-efficiency programs. As Ashok Gupta, the lead energy economist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, put it, "The FreedomCAR is really about Bush's freedom to do nothing about cars today."

Reduction in 2010 funding

The Department of Energy

United States Department of Energy

's congressional budget request for 2010 budget cuts funding for fuel cell technologies by 60% to 70 million USD. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu

Steven Chu

Steven Chu is an American physicist and the 12th United States Secretary of Energy. Chu is known for his research at Bell Labs in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, along with his scientific colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and...

's presentation portrays this as "moving away from funding vehicular hydrogen fuel cells to technologies with more immediate promise."

External links

FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FCVT) Program - USA Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...

FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies (FCVT) Program website.
21st Century Truck Partnership
Clean Cities.

FreedomCAR plug-ins

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

FCVT Office

Clean Cities Program

Partnerships

FreedomCAR and plug-in hybrids

Criticisms

Reduction in 2010 funding

See also

External links

FreedomCAR plug-ins