David Crane, President and CEO, NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG) testified before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on policies to reduce oil consumption through the promotion and accelerated deployment of electric vehicles (EV), as proposed in S. 734 and S. 948.
“Today, America is experiencing ‘déjà vu, all over again’. As the summer driving season approaches, gasoline prices have risen above $4/gallon in large parts of the country and the cost of one fill up of a full size SUV is trending towards $100. And not only is there absolutely no assurance that the gasoline price increases will moderate, every American knows that their hard won income going into their gas tank is headed from there straight overseas to help less than friendly foreign regimes,” said David Crane, President and CEO, NRG Energy. “But now, for the first time, technological innovation has produced a solution that has the potential to break our dependence on foreign oil. Mass produced plug-in electric vehicles, powered by batteries with a range double that of the distance driven by the average American vehicle on any given day, are coming to various markets around the country as we speak, produced by multiple American and global car manufacturers and start ups and more are on the way.” Crane also discussed NRG’s role in advancing infrastructure to support electric vehicles, and how the government can assist efforts to deploy private capital to advance electric vehicle deployment.
“We already have begun a $25 million program (eVgo(sm)) to install a network of convenience fast chargers around both the Houston and Dallas Fort Worth metropolitan areas,” Crane said.
Crane added “there is much the Government can do at low to no cost. It can train. It can promote electrical standards and processes to expedite the installation of home and community chargers. It can require preferential parking allocations for EVs at Government facilities and can encourage the same at privately owned parking facilities. Most importantly, the Government can acknowledge that its decades-long attempt to promote car pooling has failed and it can declare that all HOV lanes in the interstate highway system henceforth are instead