Electric vehicles may have moved from “the future” to “the present” (I own one, and it’s great), but we’ve not yet hit the stage where electric vehicles cost the same at the time of purchase as legacy gas-powered vehicles; thus, the large number of DOE Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs), which cover a variety of areas. Not only are electric vehicles not yet at purchase-point parity, but we also need more charging stations, which is getting better every year, but the number still isn’t where it needs to be. The DOE released a FOA on July 21, 2022 for the “Vehicle Technologies Office” program, with a full application deadline of Nov. 10. The application itself will be familiar to people who have worked on “Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy” (EERE) applications before, but it’ll be hard for anyone who hasn’t. “Research, development, demonstration, and deployment” (RDD&D) projects were eligible. If you call us at 800.540.8906 ext. 1, or email us at seliger@seliger.com, we can talk over the possibilities for your startup or small business’s prospects in terms of submitting a competitive, fundable DOE “Vehicle Technologies Office” application.
The 2022 FOA offered funding for a variety of project types, among them:
- “the cost-effective deployment of EV charging for those without easy home charging”
- “innovative solutions to improve mobility options for underserved communities”
- “community engagement to accelerate clean transportation options in underserved communities”
- “batteries and electrification”
- “materials technologies”
- “energy-efficient commercial off-road vehicle technologies”
- “medium/heavy duty vehicle corridor charging and advanced engine and fuel technologies to improve fuel economy and reduce GHG emissions”
This is a grab-bag of eligible grant-funded activities, and some of them don’t really need all their adjectives: why would anyone not want “cost-effective deployment?” Can you imagine a FOA that requests “cost-ineffective deployment?” Neither can I. “Omit unnecessary words” is solid writing advice that’s commonly ignored by the federal bureaucrats who write FOAs. Does anyone want “non-innovative solutions” that might aid in mobility options, in lieu of those “innovative” solutions? At least categories like “batteries” and “materials technologies” are broad and normal.
The more specific topic areas are listed on page 14 of the FOA and include what appear to be 14 activities, but some are broken down into further sub-activities (like “5a, 5b, 5c,” and so forth). The sub-categories can very very specific: one, on “Electric Drive System Innovations,” notes that applicants should propose alternatives to permanent magnet (PM) motors. Another area of interest decides to noun verbs (that makes sense if you think of “to noun” as a verb): “Vehicle lightweighting provides opportunities to increase electric vehicle (EV) driving range, reduce battery size and cost, and decrease carbon emissions.” The way to “lightweight” vehicles entails “game-changing strategies of hybridization” and those strategies are supposed to “integrate dissimilar materials with more/different functionalities into a single structural component.” Sounds good and appears to be meant for applicants that can create composite materials.
Interestingly, some funds are available for nonprofit human service providers: the eighth area of interest is for “Community Engagement, Outreach, Technical Assistance, and Training in Underserved Communities,” which is a classic “walking-around money” focus area, with funding for classic walking-around money activities, like “Projects will develop community-driven strategic plans that define community transportation mobility goals.” I imagine technical startups and businesses reading this area of interest and being justifiably confused, because it’s not a technical field, as are the others. The engagement, outreach, and training area is likely to be of great interest in social and human service providers who are looking for ways to use new money to keep funding existing staff positions. Oddly, one of the sub-activities looks a lot like lobbying: “Educating state and/or local governments on how to improve the effectiveness of alternative fuel vehicle and infrastructure,” so maybe whoever wrote this FOA doesn’t realize that grant funds aren’t supposed to be used to lobby government officials even in circuitous ways. There are 20 awards available for the walking-around money topic area, and the cost-share requirement is 0%; most of the other topic areas require a match ranging from 10% to 50%.
The FOA also mentions some job-training funding, in AOI 11, which also doesn’t look like R&D to us. So this is a chimera FOA: it has some actual R&D funds available for startups and other kinds of businesses or researchers, but it also has some generic funding for community services to be provided by nonprofits.
Overall, this is a promising grant program for both businesses, including startups, and for nonprofits looking for some money to keep doing what they’re likely already doing. When I first looked over the FOA, I thought it was primarily for startups, businesses, and some university labs, like most such FOAs from the DOE’s EERE. Most FOAs, or RFPs more generally, specialize in either true R&D spending, or in process-oriented walking-around money. This one, peculiarly, does both, which probably confuses potential applicants for either field. If I were in charge of this money pot, I’d do two separate competitions for two conceptually separate activity categories, but I’m not, so here we are. Seliger + Associates can, however, help your organization get funding from either part of this tasty grant pie.