Bill Objectives

There are five major goals listed in the e-Drive bill. They are:

(1) to stimulate private industry development of highly efficient electric drive vehicles, advanced electric drive powertrains, Electric Vehicle Battery Packs, and charging infrastructure by providing large-scale customer demand to purchase, test, and deploy electric drive vehicles and advanced electric drive powertrain conversion kits nationwide;

(2) to provide Smart Grid integration by establishing a large-scale test bed in multiple regions of the United States for utilities, fleet owners, Independent System Operators, and aggregators to develop charging infrastructure, protocols, and standards for Vehicle-to-Grid deployment and other grid services using electric drive vehicles;

(3) to independently assess the performance and economic and environmental costs and benefits of electric drive vehicles and advanced electric drive powertrains and to make the results of such assessment publicly available through an information clearinghouse to the extent consistent with the protection of proprietary information;

(4) to support development of renewable energy systems by aggregating and facilitating the use of vehicle battery storage capabilities to accommodate the intermittency of emerging renewable energy systems, particularly wind systems; and

(5) to support the eventual transition of the United States Postal Service fleet to electric drive vehicles for postal delivery.