US Department of Energy announces $45Mn in battery funding
Through the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the Department is launching the Electric Vehicles for American Low-Carbon Living (EVs4ALL) program to develop more affordable, convenient, efficient and resilient batteries. In addition to unveiling the EVs4ALL program, yesterday, DOE announced $3.1 billion in funding for the development of a national battery supply chain.
The investments are designed to focus on three areas: Charging, efficiency and resilience. The idea behind the charging progress is that while many American citizens currently prefer home chargers, this is not exactly efficient in urban areas, where not everyone has access to a garage, so investment in public charging infrastructure is inevitable. Efficiency is to focus on battery reliability, as the USA has several vastly different weather zones. While not entirely unrelated to the efficiency planning, “Battery resilience is needed for range retention to allow electric vehicles to travel longer distances between charges and have better overall total life mileage”. Used EVs are also to be greatly affected by this, according to the initiators.
“Advanced batteries are the heartbeat of the electric vehicle industry and investments to make them charge faster and last longer will be critical to accelerate the deployment of electric cars and trucks,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The benefits of an electrified transportation sector in America will be felt for generations to come — from directly combatting climate change to growing domestic manufacturing jobs and strengthening our overall energy independence.”
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