U.S. Senate Energy Committee Approves $3.5 Billion To Hurry Electric Vehicles Along

Almost Everything Old is New Again - What About Ethyl

Washington DC July 21, 2010; Simon Lomax writing for Bloomberg reported that A U.S. Senate panel today approved a $2 billion program that aims to put 400,000 electric cars on the road in three years.

ED NOTE: Total U.S. vehicle sales projections of 2014 models is about 15 million units, so using the proposed $3.5 Billion to buy us maybe 400,000 EV's or 2.3% of the total new car sales ain't so effective.

400,000 electric vehicles is less than 1/5 of 1 % of the gasoline vehicles on America's roads today, in contrast, there are already about 10 million Flex-fuel(E85) cars actually on our roads, and GM, Ford and Chrysler tell us that for the 2012 model year and beyond more than 60% of their cars sold in the U.S. will be Flex-fuel badged, (see: America's Problem-American Solution, sounds great huh?

But no, because there are so few filling stations that sell Flex-fuel, 99% of owners fill up with “old regular which is 90% gasoline and 10% alcohol even though it's in our country's interest (big time) to get off gasoline. Those would-be patriots who purchased a flex-fuel vehicle are forced to continue paying tribute to the oil companies...they just gotta...huh? (see: Fueling Freedom Plan Will Redirect Government Support to Create Open Fuels Market ). Now here is another biggie, between now and 2014 more than 40 million new Flex-fuel vehicles will hit the road without a place to fill-up with Patriotic, Domestic, Sustainable, Ecologically Better Ethanol...WTF?
So why not let us all be good Americans by mandating the replacement of “Old Regular(E10)” with domestic and sustainable "New Regular(E85)" which will immediately replace 75% of the gasoline used. Our politicians are spending zillions on ALT fuel research and other boondoggles, with this $3.5 billion just the start for 400,000 EV's.

Now here's an interesting and workable idea, why not use that $3.5 billion for an E85 Warranty Program and instantly mandate 250 Million vehicles use less-polluting, U.S. made New Regular instead of gasoline, (like replacing leaded with unleaded in the 1970's) and give our scientists and engineers the time to develop our future's fuel because electric may not be it?

The legislation from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee also authorizes a $1.5 billion research program to lower the cost of vehicle batteries and connecting them to the electricity grid.

The program, to be run by the Energy Department, would provide electric-car grants to “deployment communities” across the U.S., said Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat and author of the measure. The communities would be studied to help electric-car manufacturers, power companies and government officials work out how to get more of the vehicles on the road.

Electric cars and hybrids that run on both gasoline and electricity will help “reduce our excessive dependence on oil outside of this country,” Dorgan said.