Posted: February 27, 2008

The first two parts of this series with Felix Kramer, one of the world’s foremost experts on plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, focused on how Kramer expects an “explosion” of electric and hybrid vehicles on the market in 2010-2012, and how some small private companies may turn the world upside down with new technology that enables vehicles now on the road to be inexpensively retrofitted to run on electricity as well as gas.

As Kramer looks at a future in which he expects a majority of people to drive cars and trucks that are at least partially electrically powered, he also sees the next U.S. president instituting a sweeping new policy that will lead to the end of America’s oil addiction once and for all.

As with the themes of the first two stories, this theme has enormous implications for all investors, because if America were to end its oil addiction, hundreds of billions of dollars now being spent on imported oil would stay at home, spurring new investment in American-based industry, leading to the creation of millions of new “green collar” jobs – all without imposing extra taxes on oil companies.

During a lengthy discussion with EnergyTechStocks.com, Kramer predicted that no matter who is the next president (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain), early on that new president will issue an executive order requiring the federal government to purchase large numbers of plug-in vehicles and providing subsidies for everyone else who buys one. Thus will be set into motion a sweeping transformation of American transportation, with plug-ins replacing straight gasoline vehicles at a much quicker pace than if people simply waited until they needed a new car.

Kramer said the guiding light of this transformation will be David Sandalow, former assistant secretary of state and member of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. Sandalow, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has proposed what he calls the “Reynolds Project,” which he named after an Indiana community that is seeking to use only renewable energy. Plug-in electric vehicles are “the most important part of the solution” to America’s energy security, environmental and economic issues, Sandalow said in recent interview with Wired.com.

Key to Sandalow’s thinking is another new technology commonly referred to as “vehicle-to-grid” or V-2-G. Now being tested by, among others, Xcel Energy in Minnesota, this technology would make it possible for the electricity stored in the batteries of plug-in vehicles to be sent back into the grid and used by utilities whenever it’s needed. Sandalow said in the interview that “if we could connect our cars and trucks to this infrastructure, the potential for reducing oil dependence dramatically, and in a short period of time, would be incredible.”