U.S. reliance on oil threatens our energy security and degrades air quality in many cities. Recognizing this, DOE established the Vehicle Technologies Program to lead the nation to a cleaner, more secure transportation future. One important aim of the program is to advance energy storage (ES) technologies for fuel cell, electric, and hybrid electric vehicles (FCVs, EVs and HEVs) to increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. NREL supports the program's Energy Storage activity, which advances these technologies by addressing cost, lifetime, abuse tolerance, and performance barriers. The vision for energy storage technologies is to develop durable, safe, and affordable advanced batteries and ultracapacitors that cover a wide range of vehicle applications, including FCVs, EVs and HEVs. These development efforts will also deliver technology that is directly applicable to heavy hybrid vehicle ES requirements.