http://pesn.com/2008/04/30/9500478_Prius_Plug-in_IEEE/
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Plug In Your Prius
Jonathan Sawyer spent $30,000--and voided the warranty--to add a plug
to his Prius hybrid, which can now travel more than 1000 miles on a single
12-gallon tank of gasoline.
2008 Toyota Prius Prototype
Jonathan Sawyer wants to do his part for the environment--and then some. His
roof is covered with solar panels, and he has a wind turbine as well. A decade
ago he was one of the few people to lease a General Motors EV1, even though GM
didn't sell them in Colorado, where Sawyer lives. Later, he bought an
all-electric Toyota, the RAV4 EV. So it should come as no surprise that for
Sawyer an off-the-line Prius hybrid isn't quite green enough. What he did about
it, though, was remarkable.
Last year, the 52-year-old Boulder electrical engineer drove his US $25,000
brand-new black 2008 Toyota Prius directly to Hybrids Plus, also in Boulder,
where he wrote another check, for $32,000--to have his shiny new Prius converted
into a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).
A plug-in conversion service either replaces the car's original battery pack
with one having far higher energy capacity, as Hybrids Plus does, or supplements
it, as some other conversion companies do. The car can then travel, in this
case, up to 50 kilometers in all-electric mode without switching on the engine.
The conversion also adds a charging system that lets an owner recharge that pack
by plugging it into a standard household electrical outlet.
The result is a car that can go more than 1000 miles on a single 12-gallon
tank of gasoline. And because the Sawyer household often generates more
electricity than it needs, Sawyer's per-mile cost is even less than the $0.02
per mile it would be for a typical Colorado family.
It would take more than 300,000 miles of driving for that average family to
break even, but conversion costs are coming down even quicker than gas prices
are rising. Plug-in hybrids will play a key role in reducing oil dependence and
in reducing greenhouse gases. Already Toyota, Ford, and Honda have firm plans
for making plug-in hybrids, and more are expected soon. Jonathan Sawyer, of
course, already has his.
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