Bryan Jungers

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are now recognized as one of the most promising avenues to materially reduce automobile contributions to petroleum dependency, air pollution, and carbon dioxide emissions. Several issues remain, however, that could become barriers to the acceptance of PHEVs, thus creating uncertainty about their ultimate prospects. This paper addresses that uncertainty by examining the main technical, cost and infrastructure issues faced by PHEVs, and shows that these issues are yielding to progress. The paper concludes that this progress, in combination with the rising costs of petroleum-based fuels, promises to make PHEVs fully competitive with conventional ICE and hybrid vehicles in the near future. Moreover, existing and planned electric generating systems will be adequate to provide off-peak power and energy for large populations of PHEVs, at least in the U.S. and probably also in other industrialized countries. The paper is based on a series of projects undertaken and supported by the U.S. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) working with industrial and government partners to model PHEVs, test and evaluate PHEV batteries, design and build prototype PHEVs, assess infrastructure requirements, and analyze the carbon dioxide releases associated with electricity provided by future electric power systems for the charging of PHEV batteries.