Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles would significantly improve air quality and save oil if they replace large number of gasoline-powered vehicles. Electric vehicles will not become widely available, however, unless advanced batteries are successfully developed or some other technological breakthrough occurs to extend their range and lower their cost. In 1988, the three domestic automobile companies formed a partnership known as the United States Advanced Battery Consortium to jointly sponsor advanced battery research. The Energy Department and representatives of the electric utility industry have agreed to work with the consortium. GAO found that advanced batteries that would make electric vehicles fully competitive with gasoline-powered vehicles have not yet proven to be feasible, although DOE and consortium officials believe that continued research is justified. Progress has been made on developing mid-term batteries, but they will not make electric vehicles fully competitive with gasoline-powered vehicles. Thus, the energy security and environmental benefits of mid-term batteries appear limited. To reach the goal of developing a long-term advanced battery, consortium officials believe that about $38 million in additional federal funding will be needed. DOE did not follow up on several lessons learned during this program that could benefit future cooperative agreements. Industry officials believe that steps such as streamlining DOE's contract review procedures could help prevent programs such as the consortium from falling behind schedule.

GAO found that: (1) the consortium's long-term goal is to develop a battery that allows electric vehicles to compete fully with gasoline-powered vehicles in terms of performance and cost, but the feasibility of such a battery has not been demonstrated; (2) USABC is developing a mid-term battery that allows an electric vehicle to travel at least 100 miles under real world conditions; (3) electric vehicles using the mid-term battery would not likely achieve much commercial success, due to the battery's high costs and low driving range; (4) the consortium's budget for 1991 through 1995 was $262 million, but USABC spent only $123 million through March 1995, because of technical problems and delays in negotiating agreements; (5) the original USABC budget should sustain USABC initial research efforts through 1997, after which USABC will seek $38 million from DOE to complete the development of batteries meeting its long-term goals; (6) DOE reviews and approves USABC contracts and agreements with battery developers and national laboratories and participates in USABC management and technical committees; and (7) DOE plans an audit of USABC and will require USABC to conduct close-out audits of the individual battery developers.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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