Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt

Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt

"Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt - A plug-in gas-electric vehicle may be key in saving fuel and cutting pollution
BusinessWeek, April 11, 2005

Is there a car that can cut America's oil imports to a trickle, dramatically reduce pollution, and do it all with currently available technology? Greg Hanssen thinks so. His company has already built one such car -- a converted Toyota Prius that gets 100 to 180 mpg in a typical commute. Andrew A. Frank thinks so, too. The University of California at Davis professor has constructed a handful of such vehicles. His latest: a converted 325-horsepower Ford Explorer that goes 50 miles using no gas at all, then gets 30 mpg. 'It goes like a rocket,' he says.

These vehicles are quickly becoming the darlings of strange bedfellows: both conservative hawks and environmentalists, who see such fuel efficiency as key to ensuring national security and fighting climate change. Reducing dependence on the turbulent Middle East 'is a war issue,' says former CIA Chief R. James Woolsey, who calls the cars' potential 'phenomenal.'

What's the secret? It's as simple as adding more batteries and a plug to hybrids such as the Prius. That way, the batteries can be charged up at any electrical outlet -- letting this so-called plug-in hybrid travel 20 to 60 miles under electric power alone. Since most Americans drive fewer than 30 miles a day, such a car could go months without visiting the filling station. 'The only time you would have to gas up is when you go out of town,' says Felix Kramer, who founded the nonprofit California Cars Initiative to promote plug-ins. Run the internal combustion engine on a blend of gasoline and biofuels like ethanol, and it would use almost no oil products at all. 'That changes the world,' says Frank J. Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy.

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Professor Frank, 72, first began thinking about a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) years ago. 'But now all the pieces are here,' he says. Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ) has solved the big engineering problems with the Prius, so 'it's a trivial matter to make a plug-in,' says Joseph J. Romm, a former Energy Dept official. Greg Hanssen and his colleagues at EnergyCS, for example, replaced the Prius' existing 1.3-kilowatt-hour nickel metal hydride battery with an advanced 9-kWh lithium ion battery pack. They hope to offer a conversion kit to Prius owners.

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