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Keep in mind that they want to use 48V so that they can do a mild-hybrid: Use the 48V to power a traction motor to get a low-cost mpg improvement. Granted that once the design moves to 48V all the other things will follow.
In addition, I would bet that the early cars with 48V systems will also have a 12V system to be backwards compatible with a bunch of existing parts (note that just about every electric vehicle also has a 12V system to go along with the high-voltage traction system).
A lot of traditional vehicles have been moving to an electrical A/C system simply to save a few mpg: (When the gas engine is running 2500 rpm going down the highway but the inside of the car is already at temp there is no reason to run the A/C compressor that fast--an independent electrically run A/C solves that issue.) I believe that a bunch of Ford's use an electric A/C (Focus, Escape, C-Max, Fusion, and their Lincoln equivalents). I wonder if the OEM's would build a slightly larger A/C for the stripped chassis units knowing that there will be a "big box" mounted on them (and also allow for control independent of the ignition switch).
The auto companies are also getting really good at eeking out those last few HP out of existing gas engines. Hence all the cars with smaller displacement engines with the same, or better performance.
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