Defense Department To Make Huge Electric Vehicle Purchase: 92,000 EVs By 2020

The Defense Department is charging into electric vehicles. It will buy 92,000 electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids, by 2020. That number is equal to the total number that will be sold in 2013!
http://www.navigantresearch.com/newsroom/the-u-s-department-of-defense-will-acquire-92000-electric-vehicles-by-2020.

DOD sees electric vehicles as improving combat capability in two ways:

“In remote theaters of operations, the cost of moving fuels to forward military locations can be a multiple of the cost of the fuel itself,” says Scott Shepard, research analyst with Navigant Research.  “The military’s approach to reducing fossil fuel consumption from non-tactical operations includes acquiring increasing numbers of vehicles powered by ethanol blend and biodiesel blend fuels; but the majority of the investment will go toward HEVs and PEVs.”

One particular area of focus for the military market is the development of microgrids in tandem with vehicle-to-grid (V2G)-enabled PEVs.  Microgrids can enable bases in both tactical and non-tactical operations to utilize energy generation sources more efficiently and to operate independently of conditions on the grid.  V2G-enabled PEVs used solely in non-tactical applications provide an additional layer of energy support and storage that can assist islanding microgrids and balance distributed energy generation resources by providing power from the vehicles’ battery packs to buildings.

While DOD improves its war-fighting capabilities by using electric vehicles, its big purchase will be a big boost as well to the civilian commercialization of electric vehicles.