Austin Energy has launched a nation wide campaign to promote plug in hybrid cars. Modeling their effort on the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement initiated by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and already endorsed by the US Conference of Mayors and 175 individual cities, Austin hopes to develop incentives to be provided by electric utilities as PHEVs will utilize excess generation capacity available during night-time hours; secure fleet purchase commitments from local, state and federal governments; enlist Chamber of Commerce lead to solicit purchase commitments from private fleets; enlist community and environmental leaders to promote individual citizen purchase commitments; solicit local government and state support of PHEV initiative through approval of favorable policies.

Once again, the lack of a national energy policy has resulted in a grass roots effort to reduce our dependency on oil.