Electric Vehicles

Renewable Hydrogen: Technology Review and Policy Recommendations for State-Level Sustainable Energy Futures

Tim Lipman
Jennifer Lynn Edwards
Cameron Brooks
2006

Hydrogen is emerging beyond its conventional role as an additive component for gasoline production, chemical and fertilizer manufacture, and food production to become a promising fuel for transportation and stationary power. Hydrogen offers a potentially unmatched ability to deliver a de-carbonized energy system, thereby addressing global climate change concerns, while simultaneously improving local air quality and reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels. This "trifecta" of potential benefits is sometimes missed by narrow "cost-effectiveness" analyses that examine any one of these...

A Retail and Lifecycle Cost Analysis of Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Tim Lipman
Mark Delucchi
2006

This paper analyzes the manufacturing costs, retail prices, and lifecycle costs of five hybrid gasoline-electric vehicle types in high-volume production. Updating and major modifications are made to a detailed motor vehicle retail and lifecycle cost spreadsheet model that had previously been used to analyze the costs of conventional vehicles, electric-drive vehicles, and other alternative-fuel vehicles. This cost model is combined with a hybrid vehicle design and performance analysis using the ADVISOR vehicle simulation model. Five hybrid vehicle designs were examined for each vehicle type...

Exploring Bidirectional Charging Strategies for an Electric Vehicle Population

Soomin Woo
Leo Strobel
Yuhao Yuan
Marco Pruckner
Tim Lipman
2025

Vehicle-grid integration (VGI) technologies control the energy exchange of electric vehicles (EVs) with power grids for economic and environmental benefits. Despite early investigations, it is still unclear how VGI operations should be designed to balance the goals of mobility needs and electrical grid operational costs. In this paper, our objectives are to examine VGI strategies including bidirectional or vehicle-to-grid (V2G) concepts reflecting realistic operation scenarios, evaluate the performance of the proposed strategies using actual EV charging data and future concepts for hourly...

Trends and 2025 Insights on the Rise of Electric Vehicles in the USA

Matteo Muratori
Doug Arent
Morgan Bazilian
John Bistline
Brennan Borlaug
Austin Brown
Pierpaolo Cazzola
Ercan Dede
Chris Gearhart
David Greene
Alan Jenn
Alissa Kendall
Catherine Ledna
Yanghe Liu
Tim Lipman
Sreekant Narumanchi
Ahmad Pesaran
Ramteen Sioshansi
Thomas Timbario
Kevin Walkowicz
Arthur Yip
2025

Plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) are reshaping the transportation energy landscape, providing a practical alternative to petroleum fuels for a growing number of applications. EV sales grew 55× in the past decade (2014–2024) and 6× since 2020, driven by technological progress enabled by policies to reduce transportation emissions as well as industrial plans motivated by strategic value of EVs for global competitiveness, jobs and geopolitics. In 2024, 22% of passenger cars sold globally were EVs and opportunities for EVs beyond on-road applications are growing, including solutions to...

Policy Considerations for Advancing Bidirectional Electric Vehicle Charging in California

Tim Lipman
2024

Electric vehicles (EVs) are proliferating in California, with over 1.8 million operating in the state. Modern EVs have considerably larger battery packs than early models, in many cases 80-100 kWh for 250-300-mile driving ranges. Charging power for EVs is also increasing. With the appropriate wiring, residential charging at Level 2 has reached up to 19.2 kW though 7-10 kW is more typical, making EVs among the most demanding household power loads. These charging loads can stress local electricity distribution feeders, particularly in the early evening when power use typically peaks.

Electric Vehicle Charge Management Strategies to Benefit the California Electricity Grid

Tim Lipman
Yuhao Yuan
2025

Recent studies suggest that there could be significant value to electric vehicle (EV) drivers and power companies from incorporating EVs into the state’s electrical power grids, known as Vehicle-Grid Integration (VGI). However, the benefits could be highly variable depending on the location of the utility territory, vehicle type and battery capacity, the relevant timeframe, and whether the connection involves only managed charging or includes bidirectional charging permitting vehicle to grid (V2G) power transfer, and other factors. Various studies conducted to date generally conclude that...

Multifamily Households Across California are Paying a Lot More to Charge Their Electric Vehicle

Diya Kandhra
Dwight MacCurdy
Tim Lipman
2024

To better understand inequities in EV charging costs, we compared charging costs at public EV DCFC stations to the cost for single-family housing (SFH) residents charging at home for three California electric utility service areas, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E) and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), and for three specific urban areas - Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose. We used a combination of observed pricing data from PlugShare, a crowd-sourced database of public EV charging, and public DCFC pricing...

Comprehensive Review of California's Innovative Clean Transit Regulation: Phase I Summary Report

Matthew Jeffers
Kenneth Kelly
Tim Lipman
Andre Fernandes Tomon Avelino
Caley Johnson
Mengming Li
Matthew Post
Yimin Zhang
2022

This report–prepared by NREL and UC Berkeley for the California Air Resources Board (CARB)–provides a comprehensive review conducted for implementation of the Innovative Clean Transit (ICT) regulation and deployment of zero-emission transit buses in California. The ICT regulation requires California transit agencies to begin transitioning to zero-emission vehicle technologies, defining an increasing percentage of new bus purchases that must be zero-emission buses (ZEBs) each year. The purchase requirements begin in 2023, increasing to a 100% ZEB purchase requirement beginning in 2029. This...

Challenges and Opportunities of Integrating Electric Vehicles in Electricity Distribution Systems

Nadia Panossian
Matteo Muratori
Bryan Palmintier
Andrew Meintz
Tim Lipman
Keith Moffat
2022

Increased charging needs from widespread adoption of battery electric vehicles (EVs) will impact electricity demand. This will likely require a combination of potentially costly distribution infrastructure upgrades and synergistic grid-transportation solutions such as managed charging and strategic charger placement. Fully implementing such strategic planning and control methods—including business models and mechanisms to engage and compensate consumers—can minimize or even eliminate required grid upgrades. Moreover, there are also opportunities for EV charging to support the grid by...

Advanced Materials Supply Considerations for Electric Vehicle Applications

Tim Lipman
Petra Maier
2021

Electric vehicles are now proliferating based on technologies and components that in turn rely on the use of strategic materials and mineral resources. This review article discusses critical materials considerations for electric drive vehicles, focusing on the underlying component technologies and materials. These mainly include materials for advanced batteries, motors and electronics, lightweight structures, and other components specific to each vehicle type. Particularly strategic and widely used minerals and elements/structures for electric vehicles include nickel, cobalt, rare-earth...