This is one of the early plug-in hybrid conversions. They add bigger batteries and an extension cord to a hybrid gas-electric car. It runs on electricity for the daily commmute and uses gasoline as the convenience backup for longer distances.
Buck’s attracts the most interesting cars.
A couple stalls over was the Wrightspeed X1 (see below)
You may find this -specially these days- interesting… it was of my total surprise to see these lovely signs in Paris… everywhere.
"Plug Ton Voiture Ici" 😉
I wonder how much the total cost per mile including electricity costs, maintenance, etc., for the life of the vehicle would be for one of these cars compared to a four or six cylinder gasoline fueled car.
I wonder if they have to hack Toyota’s synergy drive system to use the batteries below a certain speed. Otherwise people accelerating beyond a certain rate (even in thier in-town drives) will use gas even when the batteries are fully charged.
In Europe, Prius’s are fitted with an extra button (we don’t get) that allows a drive to switch on the "electric only" mode for in-town drives. The scary part is that this was eliminated in the U.S. due to requirements on the length of time the drive system would be covered under warrenty.
I wonder if CalCars upholds Toyota’s original warrenty, becuase I’m sure the conversion would void the original.
reference: http://www.autoblog.com/2006/06/01/toyota-s-prius-in-europe-gets...
Toyota claims that this feature was disabled for the North American market because U.S. law mandates a minimum 8-year warranty on the hybrid drivetrain, which includes the battery pack. By disabling the option of operating solely on battery power for extended periods the company can better assure a longer life for the car’s battery pack, despite the fact that much better fuel mileage is being sacrificed.
That button was the catalyst for CalCars’ original decision to convert Priuses. I enjoyed having that button enabled for 2 years — it allowed me to go up to about a half a mile without starting the internal combustion energy. But it was foiled by the small amount of energy available from the stock Prius’s battery. Adding more batteries was the big first step; charging them from the power grid (using cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity instead of oil) was the leap.
This week Toyota acknowledged it’s had an R&D program on plug-in hybrids, but even prototypes from them remains far off. Meanwhile, we’re having a great time getting everybody on board. This week, The Economist, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, a couple of weeks ago several dozen Senators and Reps when we flew the car to DC, and in January ,Pres. Bush. Eventually we’ll persuade a car-maker to build them; meanwhile, we’re working on Toyota and Ford conversions, still as a non-profit but thinking about for-profit strategies too.
I’m at Bucks now and then, and recently started bringing the car around to show companies and VC firms what’s possible for fleets, startup ideas, etc.
— Felix Kramer, Founder, CalCars.org
So with stronger, more reliable batteries, your’e able to give the driver a choice as to wether or not they want pure electric goodness or a mix of both with that extra petrol boost. Makes you wonder why Toyota didn’t do this in the first place.
in india they have this cheapest local version of making yur car a hybrid.They add this equipment in yur existing car for 10k rupees(200$)
of’course yu’d have to manually switch between CNG to Petrol and vice versa.
(not sure if the US freeways can use this option 😉 works well with indian speed limits. )
Katsuhiro Nakagawa, Vice Chairman of Toyota spoke here at Brainstorm2006: “Hybrid tech is the core tech for the 21st century.”
Will the next generation be economical?
“The motor, inverter and electronics need to be miniaturized. We are developing really small, half-sized motors. We are trying to cut everything in half really fast.”
When will this ship?
“By the early 2010s. We sold 260K hybrid vehicles last year (but only 300 in China). We target 400K vehicles this year and 1MM by the early 2010s."
But what about China?
"We sold only 300 hybrid vehicles in China last year. People don’t want eco-friendly vehicles. They want the joy of driving. Cars in China are not that fuel-efficient right now.”
FYI, I used this photo in an article of mine:
http://www.conservationreport.com/2007/11/carbon-why-cant-most-f...
I gave the necessary "Photo source for attribution" and other information.
Thank you very much.
Buck
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