Argonne National Laboratory (the Contractor) entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the following Participants: Vehicle Recycling Partnership, LLC (VRP, which consists of General Motors [GM], Ford, and Chrysler), and the American Chemistry Council - Plastics Division (ACC-PD). The purpose of this CRADA is to provide for the effective recycling of automotive materials. The long-term goals are to (1) enable the optimum recycling of automotive materials, thereby obviating the need for legislative mandates or directives; (2) enable the recovery of automotive materials in a cost-competitive manner while meeting the performance requirements of the applications and markets for the materials; and (3) remove recycling barriers/reasons, real or perceived, to the use of advanced lightweighting materials or systems in future vehicles. The issues, technical requirements, and cost and institutional considerations in achieving that goal are complex and will require a concerted, focused, and systematic analysis, together with a technology development program. The scope and tasks of this program are derived from 'A Roadmap for Recycling End-of-Life Vehicles of the Future,' prepared in May 2001 for the DOE Office of Energy, Efficiency, and Renewable Energy (EERE)-Vehicle Technologies Program. The objective of this research program is to enable the maximum recycling …

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are being developed for mass production by the automotive industry. PHEVs have been touted for their potential to reduce the US transportation sector's dependence on petroleum and cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by (1) using off-peak excess electric generation capacity and (2) increasing vehicles energy efficiency. A well-to-wheels (WTW) analysis - which examines energy use and emissions from primary energy source through vehicle operation - can help researchers better understand the impact of the upstream mix of electricity generation technologies for PHEV recharging, as well as the powertrain technology and fuel sources for PHEVs. For the WTW analysis, Argonne National Laboratory researchers used the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET) model developed by Argonne to compare the WTW energy use and GHG emissions associated with various transportation technologies to those associated with PHEVs. Argonne researchers estimated the fuel economy and electricity use of PHEVs and alternative fuel/vehicle systems by using the Powertrain System Analysis Toolkit (PSAT) model. They examined two PHEV designs: the power-split configuration and the series configuration. The first is a parallel hybrid configuration in which the engine and the electric motor are connected to a single mechanical transmission …