“The potential for grid-connected vehicles to decimate our demand for liquid hydrocarbon fuels should be clear. Freed from the psychological barriers which hinder widespread market acceptance of pure battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids with an all-electric capability of just [30] kilometres would slash liquid fuel consumption, since such a high proportion of journeys undertaken are well within this range.”

"Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age” by WWF
(Dr. G. Kendall, 2008)

ERTRAC Electrification Roadmap
The ERTRAC European Industry Roadmap for the Electrification of Road Transport, Oct 09, anticipates 5 million grid enabled vehicles on European roads by 2020. It is worth quoting extensively from this document, as it gives a credible overview of growth of GEVs and the technical, production and regulatory hurdles that need to be overcome.

Milestone 1: Introduction (2012):
“The first step of implementation of electrified mobility will be based on the adaptation and conversion of existing vehicles into plug-in hybrid and electrical cars. Beyond demonstration and field operational tests, first fleets may evolve for niche applications like, e.g. taxis, car sharing systems, delivery services and other captive fleets Standards for safety, data communication and billing will be developed, along with testing activities and actions for raising public acceptance. At the same time, major breakthroughs can be expected in terms of the understanding of underlying technologies and principles.

Milestone 2: Intermediate (2016)
It is expected that the base technologies for a dedicated 2nd generation electric vehicle providing efficiency gains of all consumers, advanced system integration and high performance energy storage systems will become available at the intermediate time scale. At the same time, an enlarged charging infrastructure allowing dissemination over various cities and regions will develop.

Milestone 3: Mass Production (2018-20)
In about ten years from today, mass production of dedicated plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles will be fully established in Europe. Particularly, batteries, which are the most crucial component have to be available providing about tripled life time and energy density at about 30% percent of today’s cost, and highly integrated and cheap electrical motors need to be on the market in big quantities. This will make the vehicles sellable without subsidies. The infrastructure for grid integration is expected to provide advanced levels of convenience though contactless and quick charging at high efficiencies.

The involved industries agree that eventually after ten years the goal of an accumulated five million pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles on Europe’s roads may be achieved. The Table below summaries the detailed description of the milestones in terms of energy storage systems, drive train technologies, system integration solutions, grid infrastructures, safety systems and road infrastructures as given by the involved companies and organizations from the ERTRAC, EPoSS and SmartGrids platforms.”

	MILESTONE 1	MILESTONE 2	MILESTONE 3
Energy Storage Systems	Full understanding and proper management of relevant parameters for safety, performance,lifetime.	Manufacturing of long life, safe and cheap energy storage systems with advanced energy and power density.	Availability of batteries providing tripled energy density, tripled lifetime at 0-30% of 2009 cost and matching V2G.
Drive Train Technologies	Availability of drive train components optimized for efficient use and recovery of energy.	Manufacturing of range extenders & update of electric motors for optimized use of materials and functionality.	Implementation of power train systems providing unlimited range at sharply reduced emissions.
System Integration	Solutions for safe, robust and energy efficient interplay of power train and energy storage systems.	Optimized control of energy flows based on hard- and soft-ware for the electrical architecture.	Novel platform based in overall improved system integration.
Grid Integration	Charging adaptive to both user and grid needs.	Charging at enhanced speed.	Quick, convenient and smart charging with bi-directional capabilities.
Transport System	Road Infrastructures and communication tools encouraging the use of electric vehicles.	Full integration of electric vehicles with other modes of transport.	Automated driving based on active safety systems and car-to-x communication.
Safety	Electric vehicles (tested and inspected for) meeting (new) safety standards at same levels as conventional cars.	Implementation of solutions for all safety issues specific to mass use of the electric vehicle and road transport based on it.	Maximum exploitation of active safety measures for electric vehicles.