Following the press conference, Coalition members will join top political leaders, including Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff, in a roundtable discussion moderated by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The event will be webcast live at ElectrificationCoalition.org.
WHAT: Press Conference and Roundtable Discussion launching Electrification Coalition and releasing Electrification Roadmap
WHEN: Monday, November 16
TIME: 10:00 AM
WHERE: The Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
(Live webcast at electrificationcoalition.org/events.php)
PARTICIPANTS: Members of the Electrification Coalition, including:
Timothy E. Conver, Chairman, President & CEO, AeroVironment, Inc.
Peter L. Corsell, CEO, GridPoint, Inc.
David W. Crane, President & CEO, NRG Energy, Inc.
Seifi Ghasemi, Chairman & CEO, Rockwood Holdings, Inc.
Carlos Ghosn, President & CEO, Nissan Motor Company, Ltd.
Alex A. Molinaroli, Chairman, Johnson Controls-Saft and President, Johnson Controls Power Solutions
Reuben Munger, Chairman, Bright Automotive, Inc.
Frederick W. Smith, Chairman, President & CEO, FedEx Corporation
David P. Vieau, President & CEO, A123 Systems, Inc.
The Electrification Coalition is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit group of business leaders committed to promoting policies and actions that facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to combat the economic, environmental, and national security dangers caused by our nation’s dependence on petroleum.
The Coalition seeks to achieve its goals through a combination of public policy research and the education of policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public. Equipped with exceptional research and analysis, these prominent business executives bring credibility, insight, and objectivity to the debate over electrification.
The Coalition’s primary mission will be to promote the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale through a wide variety of policies and actions, including the creation of electrification ‘ecosystems,’ limited geographic areas where electrified vehicles and infrastructure can be introduced so the concept can take root and grow.
Electrification of transportation would allow cars and light trucks to run on energy produced by a diverse set of sources. In the process, electrification would shatter the status of oil as the sole fuel of the U.S. ground transportation fleet. In short, electrification is the best path to the fuel diversity that is indispensable to improving the nation’s economic strength, environmental health, and national security.
But electrification at a mass scale presents complex challenges that must be analyzed and solved if policymakers are to act. The individual elements of an electrified transportation system—cars, batteries, recharging infrastructure—make up a highly-integrated system, in which every part depends on the other. We would see few results if we began selling batteries in the Northeast, created a smart grid and expanded recharging infrastructure in the Northwest, and introduced more electric cars in the deep South.
In November 2009, the Coalition released its Electrification Roadmap, a sweeping report outlining a vision for the deployment of a fully integrated electric drive network. The report details the dangers of oil dependence, explains the benefits of electrification, describes the challenges facing electric cars—including battery technology and cost, infrastructure financing, regulatory requirements, electric power sector interface, and consumer acceptance issues—and provides specific and detailed policy proposals to overcome those challenges.
