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Imagine coming
home from work in your Toyota
Prius or Ford
Escape hybrid, and plugging it into one of your home's
standard electric outlets. Wake up the next morning and you have enough clean energy to
enable the average commuter to travel to work and back for less than a $1.00 per gallon.
That's the dream.
Sounds impossible?
Well, it's not and plug-in hybrid vehicles make such fuel economy
possible.
Plug-In Hybrid Power
Gasoline
electric hybrid vehicles are
not just a good powertrain to help clean the environment and to
help end
foreign oil dependency, but they are also an excellent way to advance fuel cells, solar
and wind power as well.
Already, hybrid cars are pushing
the development of lithium-ion technology - the battery technology
that will not only make hybrids much more fuel efficient, but
cheaper. In addition, lithium technology opens the door to plug-in
hybrid vehicles and even purely electric vehicles.
While there are still some issues
being resolved with lithium batteries, some are already converting
current hybrid vehicles into plug-in hybrids.
Several organizations,
such as CalCars.org,
have been converting Toyota Prius hybrids into Prius hybrid
plug-ins for many years now.
This hybrid to plug-in hybrid
conversion enables the Prius to run on pure electricity at
speeds up
to 35 mph, for up to 40 miles when the battery pack is fully
charged.
At higher speeds, the Prius plug-in functions just as
a standard Prius.
Other experimental plug-in
hybrids have achieved even greater fuel efficiency.
More
important, as lithium-ion batteries become more advanced, the
potential of hybrid fuel efficiency will only increase, and it
will increase significantly.
Early reports indicate that plug-in
hybrid vehicles could reduce oil consumption by as much as 75
percent, while reducing emissions up to 50 percent.
Even better, many fuel cell
developers like hybrid electric powertrains because they enable
smaller fuel cell stacks for integration into an automobile.
Using a smaller stack isn't as powerful as a larger stack needed
to create a full fuel cell vehicle, but a small fuel cell stack
would make a plug-in hybrid even significantly more fuel efficient
at a far cheaper cost than a full fuel cell hybrid. Additionally,
a small stack fuel cell plug-in hybrid vehicle could still be
fueled by gasoline and/or electricity.
Don't plug-in hybrids use
coal-powered electricity?
Of course, just plugging your car battery into one of your
home's sockets isn't much of a benefit to the environment if coal
is the ultimate source of
most electricity, right?
Wrong. From well-to-wheel,
electric power is still far cleaner than using gasoline according
to several studies. Part of the reason is because hybrid
vehicles generate their own electric power. Plugging your hybrid
into your home is intended to top off the batteries.
Of course, plugging your vehicle into a solar powered
socket, on the other hand, would produce completely clean energy.
Still, it's not that you have to plug it in, rather it's that you can
plug it in.
Nonetheless, several studies have
determined that the nation's electric grid can handle plug-in
hybrids if the majority of drivers started plugging into the grid.
Even better some companies are
developing V2G
technology that would enable plug-in hybrid drivers to plug
into the grid at work - pumping electricity into the grid during
peak hours and making money for the plug-in hybrid owner.
The Potential of Plug-In
Hybrids
University
of California at Davis Professor Andrew Frank has spent the
last decade turning production vehicles into plug-in hybrids
using off-the-shelf parts. "We just built a
high-performance plug-in hybrid Ford Explorer," he says.
"It's 325 horsepower - 200 of that horsepower is electric
and 125 is gasoline. This car goes like a rocket, but still gets
double the fuel economy of a regular hybrid. And for the first
50 miles it is all electric - zero emissions. (Read
More on this)
According to Frank, who flew his Explorer to Toyota's research
facilities in Japan so engineers could pore over the vehicle,
"There's no question in my mind that Toyota has plans for a
plug-in hybrid right now, but they aren't talking about
it," he says.
Perhaps in the future, automobile manufacturers could even
incorporate solar panels into the roofs of hybrids to provide
constant battery charging, which some concept hybrids have
already done. Until then, home-owners, solar-roofed
parking structures, and portable solar panels could still offer
consumers new possibilities and very futuristic accessories.
Fuel Choices
So, why not give consumers of hybrids
as many fuel choices as possible?
The innovativeness of hybrids is what inspires so many consumers. Moreover, professor
Frank's research demonstrates that the potential of hybrid car
technology is only just emerging.
Why not give the consumers of such revolutionary technology the help
to explore the potential of hybrids? Not only would this increase hybrid car value,
but it would inspire millions of environmentalists,
no-blood-for-oil-activists, and back yard scientists.
That would truly be an automotive revolution.
Plug-in Hybrids in Focus
Chevy Volt
Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid
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More Plug-In hybrid
information
PG&E
and Tesla Partner on V2G
Europe's
Volt: The Opel Flextreme plug-in diesel hybrid
The reality of
plug-in hybrid vehicles
Google
offers $10 million for plug-in hybrid development
Ultimate
Green Excuse: I'm waiting for a plug-in hybrid vehicle
Build
your plug-in hybrid vehicle kit
Plug-in
hybrid vehicles are a key to alternative energy success?
Plug-in
Hybrid Conversion module fits in your spare
tire well
Toyota
Confirms plug-in hybrid development
Plug-in
hybrids could increase grid reliability?
Plug-in
hybrid vehicles plugged again by Administration
Honda
pooh poohs both plug-in hybrids and E85
Are
automakers dragging their feet on plug-in hybrids?
Ford
to adapt HySeries hydrogen plug-in hybrid to gasoline
plug-in hybrid
DaimlerChrysler
testing Dodge Sprinter plug-in hybrid vehicles
Meet
the the Chevy Volt Electric Vehicle, an evolutionary GM
Concept
GM
awards contracts to develop hybrid batteries
Woolsey
plugs hybrid plug-ins again
DOE
study concludes plug-in hybrids work on grid and good
for America!
Toyota
will develop plug-ins as soon as technology ready
DOE
study concludes plug-in hybrids work on grid and good for America!
GM:
SUVs, Flex-fuel SUVs, Hybrid SUVs, Plug-in Hybrid SUVs - Lots of
SUVs
GM's
Pie-in-the-Sky plug-in hybrid plans just P.R. or reality?
GM
working on Saturn Vue Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle
I-Car
and GM's hybrid vehicle plans announced today?
Argonne
Lab and EPRI to test commercial viability of plug-in hybrids in 3
year study
Plug-in
hybrid vehicles being tested for fleet use and affect on electric
grid
Flex-fuel
hybrids or plug-in hybrids
Lithium
hybrid revolution 3 to 4 years away?
Toyota
more interested in plug-in hybrids
GM
considers plug-in hybrid vehicle
$6500.00
to double your hybrid's fuel mileage?
Hymotion
offering plug-in kit for the Prius, Escape hybrid soon
Plug-in
conversion kits for hybrid vehicles
Nationwide
campaign for plug-in hybrids launched
Check out this article, Experimental
Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 Mpg by the AP
More on plug-in
hybrid vehicles.
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