President Obama today announced 48 new advanced battery and electric-drive projects that will receive $2.4 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The money could help start a battery industry in the United States, which could be essential for US automakers to start manufacturing plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles at a large scale.

For more on the significance of this funding for the battery industry, click here.

The announcement, with a list of the groups receiving funding, can be found here.

On its own, the money won't be enough to build the large-scale factories that some companies are planning. One, A123 Systems of Watertown, MA, received $249 million in grant money. But it has also applied for $1.84 billion in federal loans to finance its proposed factories in Michigan.

A couple of weeks ago a report from President Obama's Auto Task Force roundly criticized GM's Volt plug-in hybrid--an electric car designed to travel 40 miles on battery power alone and hundreds of miles using a gasoline or ethanol-powered generator. Now some are claiming that the task force's assessment of the Volt may have been based on some erroneous figures supplied by a consulting firm.

A company reportedly hired to help the Auto Task Force, Boston Consulting Group, has recently published a report that includes estimates of battery costs that are far higher than GM's own cost estimates, as well as those from other analysts, according to Felix Kramer, the founder of CalCars, an organization that promotes plug-in hybrids. He writes:

The report reaches questionable conclusions about costs for plug-in vehicles based on elevated battery costs, which it sees currently at $2,000 per kilowatt-hour now, declining to $500-$700 by 2020. This assumption is the heart of its analysis -- and it's one that automakers, especially GM, have strongly criticized. While not getting specific, GM has made clear that its battery costs (for packs, not cells) will be "hundreds less" than $1,000 for the first generation Volt and still lower in the second and third generations of the Volt, on which it is already at work. GM isn't waiting for the "breakthroughs in technology" BCG sees as necessary.

Read the rest of Kramer's analysis here.

Credit: GM

In a conference call on Thursday, GM hinted that it will be implementing a system that will allow two-way communication between the Chevrolet Volt's battery charger and electric utility companies.

One of the big potential problems with plug-in hybrid vehicles (cars that can be recharged by plugging them into a wall socket) is that if they're ever widespread, and people plug them in all at the same time, it could overload the electricity grid.

But with the right equipment, plug-ins could actually be good for the grid. If the chargers had timers that put off charging until the wee hours of the night, the cars could make use of excess power-generating capacity on the grid. If the cars could communicate with each other, they could automatically stagger their charging, spreading out the load. And if they could communicate with utilities, they could charge when the utilities have extra power and stop charging if demand gets too high, helping to smooth out demand and prevent blackouts. There's even a plan eventually to allow cars to deliver power back to the grid to help with peaks in electricity demand. Such smart charging could make it possible to incorporate more renewable energy, by helping to make up for the variable nature of wind and solar power.

Tony Posawatz, the vehicle line director for the Chevrolet Volt, confirmed that the Volt due out in November 2010 can be programmed by owners to charge at different times. The other stuff will require more complicated equipment. Without going into details, Posawatz said that GM's OnStar system can allow for communications, making other equipment, such as smart electricity meters, unnecessary. At this point, it's not clear what exactly the OnStar system will allow, or what will be available with the first version of the Volt, but Posawatz said that case studies are being conducted, and he suggested, by way of a rhetorical question, that the system could communicate with utilities. That could allow for much of the smart charging that could help stabilize the grid. The possibility of cars delivering power back to the grid, however, will have to wait, he said.