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NOVEMBER 2013
Vehicle fuel economy can save $2 trillion and help fund transition to plug-in vehicles
Fuel economy improvements from conventional internal combustion engine cars have the potential to save $2 trillion over the next decade, according to a new report published by the ITS-Davis NextSTEPS program in conjunction with the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI). Lew Fulton, co-director of NextSTEPS, presented the findings at a joint webinar between GFEI, NextSTEPS and the UC Davis Policy Institute in November.
According to Fulton, these savings could be used in part to help offset the costs of developing a global market for electric vehicles. He estimates the potential fuel economy savings to be at least four times the EV market development costs.
Fulton's paper finds improvements to conventional vehicles, including but not limited to hybridization, could achieve a 50 percent reduction in fuel use per kilometer for new cars by 2030, in line with GFEI targets. Fulton estimates a high-end subsidy of $500 billion for the global PEV market, although that number could be much lower if battery costs drop quickly or if consumers consider the full value of fuel cost savings.
“We know that a 50 percent improvement in vehicle fuel economy worldwide is both technically achievable and cost effective," says Fulton. "What we’ve now shown is that the financial benefits of this move could be staggering. With smart policies such as a feebate scheme, the financial benefits could be leveraged, and it would provide the answer to an electric vehicles market that currently does not have such a positive outlook. If the question is ‘how do we move to a low carbon future for vehicles?’ this could be the answer.”
MAY 2013
Jaffe analyzes international energy trade in U.S. House testimony
Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of Energy and Sustainability at UC Davis, testified about international energy trade before the U.S. House subcommittee on Energy and Power on May 7.
In her testimony, Jaffe explained why open trade and global investments in energy is integral to U.S. vital interests, and provided many reasons to how it can "enhance American power and influence by strengthening our ties to important allies and trading partners."
Jaffe said that energy exports also improve the country's balance of trade while maintaining the America's free trade obligations to important neighbors such as Mexico and Canada, as well as more distant long-standing allies such as South Korea.
JANUARY 2013
ITS-Davis research highlighted in magazine's 20th anniversary
Three articles by ITS-Davis researchers are featured in the latest issue of the University of California Transportation Center’s ACCESS Magazine. The articles, which range from domestic policy subjects to topics of international consequences, translate the findings of ITS-Davis research into pertinent material for the magazine’s global audience.
In “Peering Inside the Pork Barrel,” Gian-Claudia Sciara discusses ways to improve transparency and effectiveness of federal transportation funding earmarks. Although recent fiscal pressures from the economic crisis have forced both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives to temporarily suspend the practice of earmarking federal funding to transport projects, Sciara suggests it will inevitably resume. She thus focuses on what elected officials and agency leaders can do to coordinate earmarks with their regional and state transport plans and explains how members of Congress can adjust their own practices to make future earmarks more compatible with planned investments. Sciara is a postdoctoral scholar at the Urban Land Use and Transportation Center (ULTRANS).
In “Double the Fuel Economy, Half the CO2 Emissions, and Even Automakers Like It,” Nic Lutsey discusses the political and stakeholder process and the technical underpinnings of the recently finalized 2017-2025 federal standards on fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission for light-duty vehicles. Lutsey provides a clear look at the challenges and solutions that automakers, regulators and stakeholders addressed and offers insight into the ways that the federal standards interact with California’s vehicle greenhouse and Zero Emission Vehicle regulations. But most importantly, Lutsey illustrates the significance of these new vehicle efficiency standards in terms of their impact on consumers and their broader societal benefit. As a postdoctoral researcher at ITS-Davis, Lutsey served as a research consultant for the California Air Resources Board while the agency worked with federal regulators on these new standards. He recently joined the International Council on Clean Transportation as a program director.
The third article is a collaboration between Yunshi Wang, director of the UC Davis China Center on Energy and Transportation; Jacob Teter, a graduate student researcher at ITS-Davis; and Daniel Sperling, founding director of ITS-Davis. It examines the implications of a rise in China’s vehicle population for both the environment and global energy resources. In “Will China’s Vehicle Population Grow Even Faster than Forecasted?” the ITS-Davis authors studied the historical growth of large vehicle-producing countries, in order to project China’s annual vehicle growth. Their data show how rapid motorization in China could threaten global oil supplies and exacerbate climate change.
The articles are available in the 41st edition of the publication, which also marks the magazine’s 20th anniversary.