News from Contra Costa Times (CA, USA)
by By Danny Hakim (NYT)
Ron Gremban and Felix Kramer have modified a Toyota Prius so it can be plugged into a wall outlet.
This does not make Toyota happy. The company has spent millions of dollars convincing people that hybrid electric cars like the Prius never need to be plugged in and work just like normal cars. So has Honda, which even ran a commercial that showed a guy wandering around his Civic hybrid fruitlessly searching for a plug.
But the idea of making hybrid cars that have the option of being plugged in is supported by a diverse group of interests, from neoconservatives who support greater fuel efficiency to utilities salivating at the chance to supplant oil with electricity.
If you were able to plug in a hybrid overnight, you could potentially use a lot less gas by cruising for long stretches only on battery power. But unlike purely electric cars, which take hours to charge and need frequent recharging, you would not have to plug in if you did not want to.
"I've gotten anywhere from 65 to over 100 miles per gallon," said Gremban, an engineer at CalCars, a small nonprofit group based in Palo Alto. He gets 40 to 45 miles per gallon driving his normal Prius. And EnergyCS, a small company that has collaborated with CalCars, has modified another Prius with more sophisticated batteries; they claim their Prius gets up to 180 mpg and can travel more than 30 miles on battery power.
"If you cover people's daily commute, maybe they'll go to the gas station once a month," said Kramer, the founder of CalCars. "That's the whole idea."
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