REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH PROGRAM OF THE U.S. DRIVE PARTNERSHIP: Fourth Report

This report by the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee on Review of the U.S. DRIVE Research Program, Phase 4, follows three previous NRC reviews of the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, which was the predecessor of the U.S. DRIVE Partnership (NRC, 2005, 2008a, 2010). The U.S. DRIVE (Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle Efficiency and Energy Sustainability) vision, according to the charter of the Partnership, is this: “American consumers have a broad range of affordable personal transportation choices that reduce petroleum consumption and significantly reduce harmful emissions from the transportation sector.” Its mission is as follows: “Accelerate the development of pre-competitive and innovative technologies to enable a full range of efficient and clean advanced light-duty vehicles (LDVs), as well as related energy infrastructure” (U.S. DRIVE, 2012). The Partnership focuses on precompetitive research and development (R&D) that can help to accelerate the emergence of advanced technologies to be commercialization-feasible. The guidance for the work of the U.S. DRIVE Partnership and the priority setting and targets for needed research are provided by joint industry/government technical teams. This structure has been demonstrated to be an effective means of identifying high-priority, long-term precompetitive research needs for each technology with which the Partnership is involved. Technical areas in which research and development as well as technology validation programs have been pursued include the following: • Internal combustion engines (ICEs) potentially operating on conventional and various alternative fuels, • Automotive fuel cell power systems, • Hydrogen storage systems (especially onboard vehicles), • Batteries and other forms of electrochemical energy storage, • Electric propulsion systems, • Hydrogen production and delivery, and • Materials leading to vehicle weight reductions. In each of these technology areas, specific research targets have been established, although some targets and program emphases are undergoing revision. Program oversight is provided by an Executive Steering Group (ESG), which is not a federal advisory committee. It consists of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and a vice-presidential-level executive from each of the Partnership companies. The DOE EERE efforts are divided between the Vehicle Technologies Program (VTP) and the Fuel Cell Technologies Program (FCTP). The Partnership collaborates with other DOE offices outside of EERE, as appropriate, and with the U.S. Department of Transportation on safety-related activities. The U.S. DRIVE partners include four automotive companies, five energy companies, two electric power companies, and the Electric Power Research Institute, with the DOE providing the federal leadership. During the past year, several associate-member companies have also been added. The Partnership does not itself conduct or fund R&D, but each partner makes its own decisions regarding the funding and management of its projects. Even though the technologies involved are not all under the U.S. DRIVE umbrella, the potential primary pathways to the long-term goals of significantly reduced petroleum consumption as well as reduced criteria emissions and reduced greenhouse gases (GHGs) for LDVs are as follows: • Improved ICE vehicles coupled with greater use of biofuels and natural gas, with low life-cycle environmental impacts; • A shifting of significant portions of transportation energy from petroleum to the electric grid through the expanded use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs); and • The possible transition to hydrogen as a transportation fuel utilized in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs). The committee notes that none of these pathways is without issues and none is devoid of promise. The development of biomass feedstocks and of the technologies for conversion to transportation fuels is outside the responsibility of U.S. DRIVE. Similarly, the impact on GHG emissions of a broad deployment of PHEVs and BEVs will depend on the deployment of a variety of low-criteria-pollutant and low-GHG-emissions electricity generation technologies, another area that is outside the purview of U.S. DRIVE. However, the transition to hydrogen fuel with low life-cycle GHGs is within the scope of U.S. DRIVE. The scope of this review is to assess the progress in each of the technical areas, to comment on the overall adequacy and balance of the R&D effort, and to make recommendations that will help the Partnership meet its goals (see Chapter 1 for the statement of task for the committee). This Summary provides overall comments and a brief discussion of the technical areas covered more completely in the report and presents the committee’s main conclusions and recommendations.