Toyota plug-in hybrid
Toyota took a big step Wednesday toward marketing plug-in hybrid cars -- vehicles that run mostly on rechargeable batteries and can go 100 miles on a gallon of gas -- when it announced it would provide two specially made Priuses to the University of California for testing on U.S. roads.
The Japanese company will be the first major carmaker to put the experimental electric-gas hybrid cars on American streets for daily driving when the Priuses take to the road in Berkeley and Irvine this fall.
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The news came less than a week after a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Electric Power Research Institute, a power-industry trade group, reported that widespread use of the gas-sipping cars would greatly reduce greenhouse gases as well as domestic oil consumption.
The plug-in test program will be conducted at UC Berkeley and UC Irvine, Toyota spokesman Bill Kwong said.
The cars look like normal Priuses, but unlike the showroom model, the experimental version runs mostly on its electric motor and plugs into a 110-volt house current for overnight charging. Kwong said the car will travel up to 7 miles on electricity alone and can go up to 60 mph in pure electric mode.
Hybrid cars are powered by a combination of a gasoline engine and an electric motor, which alternate giving power to the wheels to make the car move or sometimes act in combination. Advocates of alternative energy have argued for years that because most daily trips are frequently no more than a few dozen miles, those trips could be made on electric power, saving the gasoline side of the car for longer journeys.
A big problem with developing plug-in hybrid cars historically has been in their batteries. A few small firms that have converted showroom Priuses to plug-ins have done so by removing the car's nickel metal battery and replacing it with a lithium ion battery, twice as powerful as the original. But some lithium ion batteries, particularly those used in laptop computers, have overheated and caught fire.
Toyota's experimental hybrids will simply add a second nickel metal battery. Even the shops that are converting hybrids to plug-in hybrids welcomed the news about Toyota's new test cars. Toyota has been in the forefront of the hybrid world, sprinkling its Toyota and Lexus lineup with a number of hybrid cars.
Other car companies are working to catch up. General Motors says it is building a plug-in version of its conventional Saturn Vue SUV hybrid. It is also developing the Chevrolet Volt, a car that is essentially an electric vehicle with a gasoline or diesel engine that "generates enough electricity to keep the electric motor running," GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss said. The Volt is slated for production sometime after 2010.
DaimlerChrysler has had about half a dozen Dodge Sprinter plug-in hybrid vans in fleet use on American streets for the past year, but those are big vans mainly for commercial use. Ford is in a partnership with Southern California Edison to develop a fleet of about 20 plug-in hybrids to "test the technology and see how this works with the (electrical power) grid," Ford spokeswoman Jennifer Moore said.
The grid question is one that has troubled some critics of hybrid technology, who fear that if plug-ins are ever mass produced, all that recharging could produce strains on the electricity-delivery system. But I personally don't think that it will if the charging is done during off peak hours when most people are sleeping anyways.
Source: SFGate.com
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2 COMMENTS, ADD YOURS HERE:
I can't wait for plugin hybrids and even fully electric cars. The GM Volt looks incredible and hopefully it will be affordable.
Yes, this technology is finally showing a renewed interest. I honestly can't wait for a full electric full powered vehicle. But my Civic Hybrid is good enough for now :P
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