US DOE Program Committed to Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Washington DC Febryuary 23, 2006; The AIADA newsletter reported that in an interview with BusinessWeek Online, Edward Wall, program manager for the Department of Energy's Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies>/a>, he laid out some of the program's biggest accomplishments, including: advances in the area of battery research and vehicle technologies, which allow the use of lightweight materials such as aluminum.

FreedomCAR, a DOE program started by President Clinton in 1994 under the name "Partnership for New Generation Vehicles," has primarily been focused on longer term, high risk research to develop alternative fuel vehicles under the Bush administration. "Ultimately the vision of FreedomCAR is to get off petroleum. That is the hydrogen vision, and there are many technical challenges.

We think the [hydrogen car] will be a hybrid vehicle. So we need batteries, electric motors, and power electronic controls to handle the flow of energy," said Wall. FreedomCAR is now working to reduce the premium costs for hybrids, which, according to Wall, are about $3,500 to $4,000 for a conventional hybrid, and $8,000 to $10,000 for a plug-in hybrid.

Wall envisions the car of the future as "a hydrogen-powered vehicle that contains significant amounts of lightweight materials, such as carbon fiber, magnesium, aluminum and some titanium in the suspension, and advanced batteries."

To learn more about the Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies,click here.