By John Addison. Today, the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) whose membership includes 110 utilities issued a new report – “2008 Top Ten Utility Solar Integration Rankings” – which identifies the utilities in the U.S. that have the most solar electricity integrated into their portfolio.
The report demonstrates that the utility segment is making a major investment to increase the amount of solar energy in power portfolios, with many utilities doubling the amount of solar power in their portfolio in just one year. The installed solar capacity of the top ten ranked utilities rose 25 percent in a tough economy, from 711 megawatts to 882 megawatts.
The Top 10 Utilities in cumulative megawatts installed represent six states stretching from California to New York:

#1 Southern California Edison (EIX) – CA (441.4MW)
#2 Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG) – CA (229.5)
#3 NV Energy – NV (77.9)
#4 San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) – CA (49.3)
#5 Public Service of Colorado (Xcel Energy – XEL) – CO (28.5)
#6 LA Department of Water & Power – CA (13.6)
#7 Public Service Electric & Gas Co. – NJ (13.2)
#8 Arizona Public Service Co. – AZ (10.6)
#9 Sacramento Municipal Utility District – CA (10.2)
#10 Long Island Power Authority – NY (7.7)

Although the sunny West Coast dominates this year’s list, other states are coming on strong including Florida, North Carolina, and Florida. Yes, the availability of sunlight is one driver in the expanded use of solar. Other drivers include the retail price of electricity, state government initiatives such as RPS, and cap-and-trade of emission credits.
There are two primary solar technologies, photovoltaic and concentrating solar power. Photovoltaic (PV) technologies utilize a photosensitive material to generate electricity direct from sunlight. PV can also be magnified using mirrors or lenses in low- or high-concentrations known as concentrating photovoltaic technology or CPV. Concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies utilize mirrors or lenses to concentrate sunlight on a point or line and generate high-temperature heat, which is captured to generate electricity in a later process.
Julia Hamm, Executive Director of SEPA, sees strong growth in both PV and CSP. For example, Southern California Edison is planning a massive 1.3GW of CSP with BrightSource. Arizona Power is planning 125MW of PV. Medium- and utility-scale photovoltaic and concentrating solar thermal power projects are adding around 20 billion of dollars worth of investment.
Some European nations that aggressively use wind power, such as Spain and Denmark, have demonstrated that intermittency is quite manageable when renewable energy is less than 20% of the mix. CSP can take the mix much higher by storing energy in liquids like molten salt for delivery when demand peaks.
#5 on the list, Public Service of Colorado (Xcel Energy), is already experimenting with vehicle-to-grid (V2G Report), which will allow the growing population of electric vehicles to provide power to the grid during peak hours. Utilities are experimenting with several forms of large scale grid-storage which will be promising if significant costs are achieved.
Some 30 years ago, solar was dismissed as impractical. Now that PV manufacturing cost is 100 times less than in early days, utilities are taking the lead in the growing demand for solar power.

John Addison writes about clean transportation and renewable energy. He is the author of the new book – Save Gas, Save the Planet – which includes details of the growing use of renewable energy in powering cars, public transportation, and high-speed rail.

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By Joel Serface – May 28, 2009

When I moved from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2006, many of my VC friends were left scratching their heads… Why would someone who has been leading the cleantech charge in California want to move to Texas?  After all, there was conventional thinking in California that there was no hope for Texas and that only the California-way would lead to cleantech success.

I had many motivations including helping Texas become a renewable energy state.  The rationale was this…. If you want the greatest leverage in mitigating carbon emissions, start with the most carbon-polluting state in the most carbon-polluting country in the world (this was before China surpassed the US in carbon emissions).  If you make progress in Texas, then other states and countries would understand they could make the transition as well.  If you don’t show up, engage, and get the state (more importantly its people, investors, and industry) to buy in, then you cannot expedite progress or bridge the necessary gaps to accelerate the cleantech industry in Texas. 

The fact was that Texas has always been a leader in energy including renewables.  Much of the early work in solar happened in Texas at Texas Instruments under the leadership of Jack Kilby in the 1960’s and 1970’s (remember those early solar calculators?).  Like California, Texas had its share of early “successes”, but many of those disappeared in the 1980’s as federal support for renewables waned.  It wasn’t until many leaders in Texas got together to push wind energy in the late 1990’s that renewables appeared as a scalable and reasonable technology.  While California had invested into several generations of wind technologies covering its valuable lands with poorly performing wind turbines, Texas didn’t develop a policy until around the same time 1.5 MW wind turbines became commercially viable.  With the combination of a good wind policy (first-come, first serve REC availability), competitive asset pricing, and low land lease rates, the wind industry in Texas took hold. 

Since then, Texas has developed around 8 GW of wind energy with more than 15 GW planned.  To support this, Texas became a leader in transmission policy developing Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ), which are now being copied in Western states and other parts of the country.  It has also led in transmission development to renewables with 18.5 GW of new capacity approved to be developed to strong wind and solar areas of the state.  Texas will also go live in its own transmission grid, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), with the most advanced “nodal” market allowing more entry points for renewables, storage, and ancillary services.  In short, Texas has had its own renewable successes even though they are not as sexy or as publicized as what has been done in California.

California’s strengths are well-known and publicized.  There is no better-experienced region in the world in taking ideas from laboratories and technology entrepreneurs and turning them into products.  California has also been an energy policy innovator historically in clean air and energy efficiency, and more recently in policies for carbon (AB 32), transportation (AB 1493), fuels, and cleantech investment (Greenwave Initiative).  The scope of the technology and policy innovation in the state has allowed it to be a thought leader while seeing some of the early returns from its efforts.  California’s strengths come from its researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors that all think they can change the world.  In short, there are no limits to what Californians think they can accomplish and therefore no limits in its scope of innovation.

Texas’ strength in energy runs deep in the veins of its people.  It starts with a “can-do” or “wildcatting” nature of its people, extends to land development, project development, industrial scalability, and energy trading.  Texans have always taken energy risks and developed core competencies in scaling and optimizing massive processes for chemical and petroleum production.  They have also developed critical technologies for extracting and transporting energy from its origin across vast areas to deliver it where it is needed.  Most of this experience is in extracting, refining, and converting hydrocarbons, but it can also be applied to all aspects of cleantech.  In short, Texas knows how to scale energy technologies and once it is given a price or incentive will become the leader in delivering new forms of energy.

If California represents scope and Texas represents scale, then we need both to transition cleantech ideas from lab to market at an ever-increasing pace.  So what needs to happen to achieve the scope of California and the scale of Texas? 

First, new interfaces need to be built.  If they are, we can accelerate the early and the late to more broadly deploy renewables.  Both Texas and California need to dismiss their pre-conceived notions that their respective approach is best.  The nation needs policy and technology innovators as well as deployment and market innovators.  In the middle is the need for a new dialog and new interfaces especially around how to tie ideas from California into projects in Texas.  There also has to be acknowledgement that California isn’t the only place ideas come from or can be built into companies.  It might actually be better to develop these technologies closer to the points of adoption or at least understand customer and integration needs from the outset.

Second, Texas needs to learn from California and develop policies that support more renewables and energy efficiency.  In the Texas wind case, the state waited to develop a policy just ahead of the time when asset performance of wind turbines was about to achieve price parity with traditional electrical generation.  We are on the precipice of this with solar and other technologies.  If Texas doesn’t adopt policies in this legislative session, it will be left on the “solar sidelines” while other states and countries continue to develop their solar industries, achieve economies of scale, and geographic advantage.  This would lead Texas down the path of possibly importing solar panels as opposed to developing its own domestic solar industry.  If Texas indeed learns from other states and adopts policies more aggressively, then the scaled industries will take hold in Texas and grow faster.

Third, California needs to recognize the potential in developing projects in Texas.  Texas has created a favorable environment for the energy business and has been ahead of the curve in market transformation in order to do so.  This coupled with their demonstrated success in delivering large energy projects gives them a tremendous lead in deploying new energy technologies at a massive scale.  In fact, many of the incentive approaches for wind, transmission, and transmission grid management for renewables should be examined at a national level.

Fourth, Texas cannot sit on the sidelines on carbon pricing.  It is in Texas’ best interest to have a predictable carbon target and therefore price.  This will mobilize many of the traditional energy companies and utilities to get off the sidelines and begin investing into the future energy industry and building their future business models (new financial, trading, and integration models are likely where Texas will succeed). 

Finally, new investing models need to be attempted combining early and late stage investing.  A great deal of attention needs to be paid to the “valley of death” between development of new energy technologies and their delivery in large scale to integrated projects.  While Federal loan guarantees and Federal test and integration centers will be useful here, it will require experienced investors, developers, and corporations to step in, provide financing, and minimizing risk ultimately accelerating these implementations to market.  Texas could become the large-scale test-bed for these implementations.

To make this all work, Texas needs to step forward in this legislative session to begin embracing solar energy and other forms of renewables as well as energy efficiency.  The state’s leadership also needs to announce their support for renewable energy and endorse its associated economic opportunities for the state.  If a pragmatic and immediate approach is developed in working together with industry and California (and other states), the results will be a healthy, high-growth new energy economy, increased numbers of jobs, greater global competitiveness, and enhanced energy and economic security for the United States (and Texas and California). 

Joel Serface served as NREL’s first Entrepreneur in Residence with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.  As an investor and entrepreneur, Joel has planted cleantech seeds in Massachusetts, California, Texas, and now Colorado.  Since 2000, Joel has started or invested into more than 20 cleantech companies with 5 liquidity events so far and has catalyzed the formation of numerous supporting cleantech institutions and regional and national policy initiatives.

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Here are reported cleantech venture deals from the past few weeks, showing that things are still a bit slow but the money is starting to flow into a more diversified mix of sectors:

• GreenRoad, a vendor of fleet driver safety and fuel efficiency monitors, has raised $15mm in “growth funding”, led by DAG Ventures and including return investors Benchmark Capital, Virgin Green Fund, Amadeus Capital Partners and Balderton Capital.

• OutSmart Power Systems, a developer of commercial building energy efficiency systems, has announced a $2mm seed round from Bainco, Clean Energy Venture Group, and Manifold Products.

• Micro fuel cell developer UltraCell announced a $3.8mm insider round, from existing funders BASF Venture Capital GmbH, OnPoint Technologies, Espirito Santo Ventures (ES Ventures) and Miami Valley Venture Fund.

• VentureWire reported on a few fundings that have been discovered through Reg D filings:  Arxx Corp. (green building materials) has raised $3mm of a targeted $4.3mm round; Infinia Corp. (solar) has raised $14.1mm of a targeted $50mm debt/rights financing;Tendril Networks (smart grid) has raised $19mm out of a targeted $30mm equity raise; and Renewable Fuel Products (biofuels) has raised $145k.

• SpectraSensors raised a $6mm round of financing from new and existing investors, including Blueprint Ventures, Nth Power, American River Ventures, Nomura Private Equity Investment, and Chevron Technology Venture Investments.

• Wind developer OwnEnergy has added to its Series A with new financing from Clearpoint Ventures and GoGreen Capital.

• Lighting ballast vendor Fulham Inc. has raised $10mm from Braemar.

• Daimler is buying a 10% stake in Tesla.  For more information, see any news website anywhere…

• Biogas plant developer agri.capital has raised a EUR60mm round of financing.  TCW Group, Inc led the round, alongside existing investors Altima Partners, Green Partners, Halcyon and Ludgate Environmental Fund. agri.capital also raised a EUR10mm mezz debt facility with Ecofin.

• Terralliance, which got in a news a fair bit last month, has raised some new funding and (probably more importantly) converted a large portion of its debt into equity.

• Solar inverter vendor Sustainable Energy Technologies has raised C$1.3mm in a PIPE (note: link opens PDF).

• Germany’s P21, which is developing fuel cell for backup power systems, has raised a EUR10mm round of financing led by Yellow&Blue Investment Management, alongside existing investors Target Partners and Conduit Ventures.

• Madrone Capital Partners has led a $22.5mm round of financing into solar micro inverter company Enphase Energy.  New investor Bay Partners also joined the round, which included existing investors Third Point Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners and Applied Ventures.

• Swedish transformer company Hexaformer has raised a EUR3.3mm round of financing from Sustainable Technologies Fund and InnovationsKapital.  

• Capricorn Cleantech Fund and GIMV have put EUR1.5mm each into a first round of financing for NovoPolymers NV. 

• Deeya Energy raised a $30mm Series C led by Technology Partners, to further their flow battery development efforts.

• ZettaCore raised a $21mm Series C — GreenLight mentioned that part of the proceeds will go toward the development of energy storage applications.

• It’s not a cleantech deal, but still, I thought this report by Cooley Godward (note: opens PDF) was very much worth highlighting, since it does a great job of illustrating the dramatic downtown in venture capital valuations over the past few months, across all stages.  Entrepreneurs, take heed…

Other news and notes: If you haven’t seen it already, it’s well worth reading Joel Serface’s piece on his year as an EIR at NREL…  Finally, while the WaPo editors are down on the Chevy Volt, this column by Michael just made me jealous!

Nowadays, many individuals are utilizing cell phones in contrast with the landline phone. The reason for this is the fact that cell phones are handy, which means that you have a communication device anywhere you go. However, it has been said by some expert that the signal that these cell phones create can cause brain tumor.

Despite the fact that the cellular phones can produce harmful effects to individuals, the use of the cell phone will still be as popular as ever. For this reason, experts made a device called mobile cell phone booster to reduce the harmful effects of the cell phone. Many individuals are making use of such products because aside from the fact that it can prevent harmful effects, it also has added benefits.

A mobile cell phone booster can improve the signal of the cell phone, which reduces the production of the harmful effects to the body. Moreover, the mobile cell phone booster provides stronger connections, which is great for calls. It also provides signal in locations that normally does not have any signal. Furthermore, the kids are more prone to the harmful side effects that the cell phone can produce; however, with the use of such product, you will be sure that the children are safe from any ailments.

For all US based readers, welcome back from the Memorial Day weekend.  It’s not just a 3-day weekend, folks.  It’s a day of remembrance and thankfulness, first and foremost. 

Insofar as cleantech issues impact that, Ian writes passionately about the link between supporting clean energy, supporting energy independence, and supporting our troops.  I would add that it’s also important to recognize the role that the US military has played in supporting the development of clean technologies.  The military needs renewable distributed generation technologies badly.  They have been major supporters of technology developments in everything from advanced motor design to sensors to biofuels to wind power.  DARPA grants have been valuable for several companies I’ve backed and evaluated as an investor.  In many ways the Department of Defense has been a second Department of Energy for some time now.

Andy Bochman here in the Boston area has been writing a good blog on energy tech matters related to the DoD.  Check it out.

A deals update will be coming soon…

by Richard T. Stuebi

One of the more popular policy prescriptions often made by ardent renewable energy advocates is the adoption of a “feed-in tariff” (FIT).

With a FIT, the government sets a price for electricity supplied by a qualifying renewable energy source, and the price is usually sufficiently high to produce a good return for the investor to install the renewable energy project. This, in turn, provides a substantial economic motivation for the growth of the renewable energy sector.

Supporters love the fact that a FIT policy provides a long-term, stable, predictable, and lucrative return on renewable energy investment. Naturally, this leads to booming markets for renewable energy where FITs are in place.

FITs are in wide use in many parts of the world – mainly in Europe, but increasingly in Canada as well. Correspondingly, these markets are experiencing exploding growth for renewables.

However, to date, traction has been slow to come for FITs in the U.S. because the policy mechanism is innately at odds with the prevailing philosophy of the American economy: to let market forces sort things out.

In the U.S., the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) has been the preferred policy mechanism to promote the penetration of renewable energy (along with the predictable potpourri of incentives and subsidies buried in the piles of the tax codes). In an RPS, the government sets a target for a quantity of renewables to be adopted by a certain date – and then lets market forces dictate what mix of renewables will supply the requirement, as well as the price implications of that mix.

By contrast, a FIT explicitly puts the government in the position of price-setter, and picks technological winners by placing prices as a function of the renewable energy technology in question.

If the price of the FIT is set too high, unquestionably this pushes renewable energy adoption, but tramples competitive forces in doing so: bad (meaning, to me, highly-uneconomic) projects get done, and/or companies or investors make outrageous profits. On the other hand, if the price of the FIT is set too low, then the policy won’t have any impact at all: no incremental investment in the desired renewables will occur.

In other words, the government has to be able to set the price at exactly the right level to induce a lot of investment – but no higher so as to provide a free wealth grab, and no lower so as to discourage the market from happening at all. No government is that smart to be able to perfectly set the price of a FIT. So, in practice, FIT prices are very high – and the renewable energy interests profit immensely from it.

Although FIT policy has historically gone nowhere in the U.S., that may be changing, as FITs are starting to get more serious consideration. In early 2008, the California Public Utilities Commission adopted the first FIT in the U.S., to promote up to a maximum of 480 megawatts installed. Earlier this year, the city of Gainesville, Florida enacted a feed-in tariff for its municipal utility. Even in Michigan, not considered one of the leading states in pro-renewables policies, the Public Service Commission is considering a pilot feed-in tariff.

I am not sold on the FIT mechanism as good policy, because it is so heavy-handed and arbitrary. However, as the rest of the world adopts FIT policies, they extend their leadership over the U.S. – and the leadership is not just in market size, but also in technological advancement. If the U.S. doesn’t maintain technological leadership, then we’ve lost arguably our best asset. If a FIT policy is necessary to be leaders in renewable energy, then maybe it’s a necessary evil.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d have had to swallow hard in lukewarmly supporting a policy that otherwise I find fundamentally challenging.

Some have argued that the aggregate economic subsidy associated with a national FIT policy is outweighed by the faster reduction in costs associated with renewable energy advancement promoted by the FIT, plus the avoided expenditures on fossil fuels displaced by the increased renewable energy production caused by the FIT. It’s an interesting argument, but counter-intuitive to me, and I’d like to see some quantitative support for this line of reasoning.

Richard T. Stuebi is the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc. Later in 2009, he will also become Managing Director of Early Stage Partners.

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There are some operating systems that cause problems with completing your Ares download, most notably the Windows Vista operating system when used in conjunction with a previous version of the Ares software. There are some simple solutions to this problem, however, allowing you to easily complete your downloads in no time.

The first thing that you may want to do when you are having trouble with your Ares download is to find out which version of the software you are using. If you happen to have a slightly older version of the Ares software, then you may want to update it by visiting the Ares site. You can update your software in just a few minutes to have access to all of the music tracks you are interested in.

You can also complete your Ares download on windows by changing the security features that may block incoming files. For example, if you have an operating system that asks for permission each time a file runs on the computer, then you may want to change the UAC settings on your computer. You can find information for learning to use the Ares download software, and more, at the Official Ares site.

I usually don’t do this, but a couple of days ago we had a post on Cleantech.org’s Linked In group around algal processes, feedstocks, and the recent DOE solicitation, that engendered a lively discussion, in part taking off from the recent demise of Green Fuels.

While many of you know I am not personally a fan of algal fuels, I have posted it en masse, unedited, so enjoy, as the discussion ranges across a decent chunk of the issues facing algae processes and provides some food for thought.

Urgent – Algae Oil Production or Algae Methane Production Needed!
We are completing a DOE grant application design to meet our Notice of Intent by next Friday and need to find one or two companies with a process to make Algae Oil or Algae Methane, or either, for our process. Please email any information or contacts as our time line is running short for this grant. We believe we have lined up most all other pieces for this proposed biorefinery!

Frédéric
Posted 1 hour ago Reply Privately Delete comment
Walter Breidenstein
Professional Entrepreneur
Frederic,
Thank you for the very interesting information. We have not reached any agreement with Genifuel yet, but I have had one brief discussion and a couple email exchanges. I get the feeling they are at the top of their game and have their own uses for methane from their website. I’m not convinced as I know the methane markets extremely well and not a day passes that I don’t hear of another methane technology that will be “easily converted to liquids”. I’ve traveled the world on researching and studying methane conversion, and it just is not as easy as some would have you believe. Therefore, I would be most interested in your technology. We remain open and ready to do business with anyone that can integrate their value chain into ours. Further, the grant is not due until June 30 (so you are not too late) while the Notice of Intent is due by next Friday. We remain committed to find some help in Algae to Methane technologies. We think we can add value to whatever is the methane source.
Walt.
Posted 42 minutes ago Reply Privately Delete comment

Neal Dikeman is a partner at cleantech merchant bank Jane Capital Partners and Chairman of Carbonflow, Inc. and Cleantech.org.

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Had the pleasure of moderating a very interesting panel at Boston University today on smart grid and energy efficiency, including representatives from the State of Massachusetts, NSTAR, GE, BU, and Millennial Net.  Lots of optimism about ongoing pilots and smart grid roll-outs.

And of course, here in this column we’ve talked quite a lot recently about how the cleantech VC community seems to be much more vocal about targeting capital-efficient energy efficiency and smart grid investments these days.

Except that I took a look at the details in the Q1 2009 Cleantech Venture Monitor (another great job by Cleantech Group’s Brian Fan and colleagues), and there’s no evidence yet of such a shift.

In their tally, solar remains the big dog, at almost 35% of all cleantech venture dollars in the quarter.  That’s just barely down from the ~38% it captured in Q1 of last year, for example. 

Biofuels and transportation (not exactly the poster children for capital efficient investment areas) continue to be other big targets for VC dollars, at ~10% and ~20% respectively. 

And where is “smart grid”?  At under a 5% share.  In the Cleantech Group’s methodology, energy efficiency investments tend to be spread across a number of different categories, but even the “green buildings” category garnered only ~10%, about the same as in Q1 2008.

Will we see VCs start to put their money where their mouths are in upcoming quarters?  We’ll just have to wait and see.

By John Addison. President Barack Obama announced that automakers must meet average U.S. fuel-economy standards of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. This will be an exciting opportunity for automakers that already deliver vehicles that beat 35.5 mpg such as the Ford (F) Fusion Hybrid, Mercury Milan Hybrid, Toyota (TM) Prius, Honda (HMC) Insight, Honda Civic Hybrid, and the Mercedes Smart Fortwo. You can buy these gas misers today. A number of other vehicles offered in the U.S. now come close to the 2016 standard, and will see mileage improvements next year.

In Europe, over 100 models can be purchased that meet the 2016 standards, thanks to the popularity of cars that are smaller, lighter weight, and often use efficient turbo diesel engines.

Over the next three years, dozens of exciting cars will be introduced in the United States. Here are some offerings that we are likely to see in the next one to three years from major auto makers.

Ford (F) will extend its current hybrid success with added models. During my recent test-drive of several vehicles that meet the 2016 requirement the midsized Ford Fusion Hybrid demonstrates that you can enjoy fuel economy in a larger car with comfort and safety. The Ford Fusion Hybrid has an EPA certified rating of 41 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway. The car can be driven up to 47 mph in electric mode with no gasoline being consumed. Ford will start selling pure battery electric vehicles next year that will lower its fleet mileage average.

The best mileage SUV on the market is the Ford Escape Hybrid with 32 mpg. In 2012, Ford will also offer a plug-in version of the Escape Hybrid that will blow-away the 35.5 mile standard. Bringing the popular Fiesta to the U.S. with a 1.6L gasoline engine will also attract budget minded buyers looking for good mileage.

In discussing the new standards, Ford CEO Alan Mulally stated, “We are pleased President Obama is taking decisive and positive action as we work together toward one national standard for vehicle fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions that will benefit the environment and the economy.”

General Motors (GM) plans to be the leader in plug-in hybrids starting with the Chevy Volt. It has a major opportunity to extend its E-Flex architecture to SUVs and trucks by 2016. For the price conscious buyer, the Chevy Spark hatchback with a 1.2L gasoline engine should deliver over 40 mpg.

There are almost 40,000 Chrysler GEM electric vehicles in use today. The GEM 25 mph speed limits them to only being popular in fleets, university towns, and retirement communities. Chrysler will extend its early U.S. electric vehicle leadership in 2010 with new freeway speed plug-in hybrids that can be driven 40 miles in electric mode, before engaging the gasoline engine – the Jeep Wrangler, an SUV, and the Town and Country Minivan. Over time, Chrysler can expand its ENVI family. Chrysler’s new stockholder Fiat will bring in exciting smaller cars and help expand the EV success.

Toyota (TM) will expand on the success of the Prius with more new hybrids. Since 2002, I have been driving a Prius that has averaged 41 mpg in real world driving that has included climbing hills with bikes on a roof rack and driving through snow with skis on the roof rack. The Prius will also be made available as a plug-in hybrid – hundreds of these PHEVs are now being tested by fleets. The modestly priced Yaris, which gets 32 mpg, is likely to also be offered as a hybrid that delivers over 40 mpg.

Honda (HMC) is likely to be the first maker to meet 2016 CAFÉ requirements, building on its historical leadership in fuel economy. My mother has easily achieved over 45 mpg with her Honda Civic Hybrid. Now Honda is going after the Toyota Prius with the Honda Insight. The popular Fit, which gets 31 mpg, is likely to also be offered as a hybrid offering over 40 mpg. Look for more high mileage offerings from both Honda and Toyota as they compete for hybrid leadership.

Nissan’s (NSANY) Altima Hybrid delivers an impressive 34 mpg. Beyond hybrids, Nissan is determined to be the leader in battery electric vehicles. Working with fleet consortiums and major electric utilities, next year Nissan may seed the market with thousands of freeway speed electric vehicles. The Nissan EVs have ranges of at least 100 miles per charge. Clean Fleet Report EV Test Drive

This article does not pretend to be a complete review of what is coming, rather a taste of what is here and what will soon be here from six major automakers. Given economic challenges, not all forecasts will happen. There will be surprises, more new models, and new model names. Not all plans will be executed as Chrysler deals with bankruptcy reorganization and as GM considers one.

Meeting the CAFÉ standards by 2016 will not be a slam dunk for all of the automakers, but they will make it. Historically, CAFE standards have not aligned with the EPA fuel economy determinations used in this article. For better and worse, flexfuel vehicles get artificially high numbers, making it easier for GM, Ford, and Chrysler to meet CAFE targets. Plug-in hybrid and EV ratings need to be finalized. To meet fleet average requirements, cars will need to average higher than 35.5; light-trucks and SUVs lower.

Trends to more efficient drive systems are a certainty. With oil prices now close to double the recent lows of earlier this year, these new vehicles bring important relief to every driver who wants to save at the pump.

John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and details the future of transportation in his new book Save Gas, Save the Planet.

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