In fact, for some shade-tree mechanics, it's already here. But now big automakers have announced plans to soup up their hybrids, too.
Toyota said Tuesday said it would offer a gasoline-electric hybrid with bigger batteries that could be recharged at any outlet, further stretching the gasoline the car uses. Though production is years away, experimental models built by independent mechanics have already demonstrated 100 mpg results.
"Make no mistake about it, hybrids are the technology of the future, and they will play a starring role in the automotive industry in the 21st century," Jim Press, president of Toyota's North American subsidiary, told the National Press Club.
Even though the addition of bigger trucks and sport-utilities has brought its corporate average fuel economy down from 26 mpg in 1987 to 24 mpg today, according to EPA figures released this week, Toyota is the undisputed leader in hybrid technology. Press said Toyota has "sold more U.S. hybrids so far this year than Cadillac, Buick or Mercedes-Benz has sold cars."
The company's Prius model is the best-selling hybrid model in the U.S., with 73% of the small but rapidly growing market it shares with Honda and Ford. Daimler-Chrysler and GM are experimenting with plug-in hybrids as well. But in this case, all are merely following the lead of dozens of backyard tinkerers.
Available now, if you do it yourself
Though the 100 mpg car sounds like a myth, it turns out that such vehicles do exist -- only they're built in your neighbor's garage, not a giant production plant.
Known as plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (aka PHEVs, or grid-connected hybrids), they’re basically Priuses or similar hybrids that have been equipped with extra batteries so that they rarely use their gasoline engines at all. They get plugged into a wall socket at day's end.
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Here's the rub, though: Transforming your Prius or other hybrid into one of these gas-sipping wonders is no simple feat. Nor is it cheap. And buying a brand-new plug-in off a showroom floor? Impossible, at least for now.
"People are salivating for plug-ins," says Bradley Berman, editor of the site HybridCars.com. "Once you start driving a hybrid -- and now we’re only about a year and a half from having a million hybrids on U.S. roads -- and you start realizing all of the benefits, and start to experience the silence of the all-electric mode. … You want to extend that. And that’s what plug-ins represent."
How it works
A hybrid vehicle today like a Prius has both a gasoline engine and a battery, which is fed by the braking energy produced by the car. The car doesn’t get plugged in -- in fact, it can’t be plugged in.
A plug-in hybrid keeps those components, but essentially gets an extra fuel tank, in the form of an added battery bank (plus some changes to accommodate it.) that allows the car to run exclusively off battery power for most driving. We’re not talking big distances gained here -- a range of up to about 30 miles at slower, city speeds, depending on the batteries used. That may not sound like much. But "there have been numerous studies that peg the average American driver’s daily vehicle use at between 25 and 30 miles," says Pete Nortman, president of EnergyCS, one of just a few companies that’s at work on plug-in conversion kits.
A plug-in hybrid doesn’t sloooow down when its charge runs low. (That wouldn’t be a very useful car, would it?) Instead, the vehicle simply slips into its hybrid mode, using both gasoline and electricity. And it does all of this automatically; the driver never notices.
The benefits of a plug-in
Felix Kramer, founder of the California Cars Initiative, a nonprofit group that promotes the use of high-efficiency, low-emission cars, owns the first consumer plug-in in North America – a Prius equipped with high-end, lithium-ion batteries.
Not surprisingly, he loves it. "Many days I use no gasoline, because I go at neighborhood speeds for under 30 miles, and I’m just all-electric all day," he says. "And that means it’s quiet.
"I resent when the gasoline engine comes on," Kramer adds. At speeds over 34 mph in the Toyota, the gasoline engine kicks in. Even so, "At 55 mph, 60% to 70% of the power can come from electricity," he says, so the machine is still saving gas.
And the mileage? "At highway speeds, you can easily get over 100 mpg, plus electricity." Other plug-in owners offer up similar results. |
