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Plug-in Hybrids? What are those?
It's a book, written by Sherry Boschert - and it's also your dream car, brought to life by electric car activists with wrenches.The ButtonWhen the 2004 Toyota Prius was released, and people managed to get one and take it home (these cars flew off the shelves, so to speak. Laying hands on one wasn't all that easy), they noticed a mysterious button on the dashboard that didn't seem to be attached to anything.
The dealerships didn't know anything about it.Toyota wasn't talking. So what's a Prius owner gonna do with a question nobody could answer? Go to the Internet, of course. They quickly discovered that, except in America, pushing the mystery button allows you to drive your car entirely in "electric" mode. American Priuses didn't have this option, (and the picture you see here is of a "non-US" model) because supposedly you could cheat on your emissions test if you hit the switch and kill the gas engine. (Please. If you hit the switch and the engine died, the car proctologist could TELL from the lack of engine noise: end of test. Besides, what PRIUS is going to fail an emissions test, for heaven's sake? American Priuses didn't have the electric-only option because the American auto/oil industry lobbyists wouldn't have it.) 
Anyway. A couple of months later, some enterprising Texan engineer managed to reconnect the EV button on his Prius. Neat! Now, for short trips, he didn't have to use the gas motor at all, or if stuck in traffic or whatever. The gas engine recharged the batteries when it switched over. ...and have the option of PLUGGING IN your Prius, just like an all-electric car? Then, instead of getting 40 mpg, which is good, or 50mpg, which is better... ...you could be getting 100 to 150 mpg! Yes, actually, you can have it all.The idea was pretty seductive.The best part, the irresistible part, is that your range could then be very flexible. If you find yourself driving around town, then you could stick with "electric drive", and save yourself a bundle - not to mention saving a bundle of nasty carbon emissions and pollution, too; ) But if you've used your batteries up and you've still got 75 miles to go... ...no problem! Now you can just continue your journey in a reasonably fuel-efficient gas-guzzler. Um, gas-sipper, I should say; ) Oh, well, there is ONE problem. The car won't LET you convert it, not without hacking the "brain". I should say, it COULD have been a problem, except that the people who tend to buy hybrids also tend to be the kind of people who might just be able to rewrite code... 
...and it wasn't too long before that little problem was no longer a problem; )That small group of folks from CalCars and Plug-in America put down their pens and marching shoes for a minute and got to work building that plug-in Prius. That story alone is worth the price of the book. There were lots of ups and downs, or it wouldn't be a story. In the end, they got the car built, and the mileage was as good as they'd anticipated; in fact, with some electric car driving skills, they did even better. Now this sounds like the car that will convert all of us to electric, doesn't it? Want one?
The good news is that you can have one, but you're gonna have to have it built. You can't get one off the showroom floor that you can plug in, not today - although now that the activists have built a plug-in, the car companies can hardly whine that it can't be done! Expect to see them...no, DEMAND to see them on the dealers lots in a few years. A small aside: Check out this article I wrote about
fake hybrid electric cars.Today, you can buy yourself a Prius, which gets 60mpg this year, and then get a conversion shop to put in a kit for you. The kits are around 10K, and the conversion itself will cost you another 5K. The Prius is about 22K. So for under 40 thousand, you've got yourself a plug-in. If you've got the green and you want a plug-in hybrid, you've got two options: either contact Hymotion in Canada or EDrive in California, and have your Prius converted by them; or convert your own (with some help from your local EVA chapter, of course) using one of their kits. If you need more information on any of this, contact me. I'm happy to help. Either way, it's a bring-your-own-Prius party. This is a good book, and it's what everybody's reading around here these days. If you haven't read it, get a copy There's inside scoop from the people and events that brought you "Who Killed the Electric Car?", too. If the movie left you wanting to know the people a little better, you can find more about them in the book; )
A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
Motor on from Plug-in Hybrids to my Plug-in America page
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- it's worth your money.
