Business Week: Giving Hybrids a Real Jolt: plug-in gas-electric vehicle may be key in saving fuel and cutting pollution
Apr 1, 2005 (From the CalCars-News archive)

A scan of the print edition with excellent graphic will be available at
http://www.calcars.org/kudos.html over the weekend

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_15/b3928103.htm
Business Week p.70
APRIL 11, 2005

ENVIRONMENT

Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt
A plug-in gas-electric vehicle may be key in saving fuel and cutting pollution

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.

"TRIVIAL MATTER"
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. The weight penalty? About 170
pounds.

Car owners might not want to try this at home. Such a conversion will
probably void Toyota's warranty. But big companies are building their own
vehicles. In a project sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI), several utilities, government agencies, and DaimlerChrysler (DCX ),
the carmaker is building a fleet of up to 40 PHEV delivery vans.

Four will be coming to U.S. cities for tests starting in June. Research at
EPRI predicts that the plug-in vehicles, based on DaimlerChrysler's popular
Sprinter van, will get a gas mileage boost of at least 50% over
conventional vans.

EPRI Program Manager Robert Graham is convinced that Toyota already has
prototype plug-ins running. Toyota says no. "We keep looking at the
concept, and at some point it might be feasible, but it isn't there yet,"
says David Hermance, Toyota's executive engineer for environmental
engineering. For its part, DaimlerChrysler sees its van project "as a great
opportunity to develop the vehicles we foresee in the future," says
technology spokesman Nick Cappa. The company's first hybrid offerings will
be conventional, but plug-ins might eventually be an option, he says.

Auto makers' reluctance to plunge in quickly frustrates evangelists like
Professor Frank. "If it is such a damn good idea, why are the car companies
not adopting plug-ins?" he asks. "The simple answer is that they don't want
to change what they are making." But it's also not clear how much more
people will pay for the cars. Hybrids are estimated to cost $2,000 to
$5,000 more than conventional cars to make, and the larger batteries for
plug-ins would add several thousands dollars more.

"UNCERTAINTY"
Proponents predict costs will drop with high-volume production. But making
the investment to build hundreds of thousands of PHEVs is a giant risk,
especially since there are competing approaches to higher fuel efficiency,
such as advanced diesels or upgraded gasoline or hydrogen engines. Plus, no
one knows if gas prices will rise enough to spur demand for high mileage
cars. "All these technologies are great. But there is a tremendous amount
of uncertainty," says David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive
Research.

That's why some plug-in advocates are striving to create a market for auto
makers. On Mar. 3, the city of Austin, Tex., passed a resolution calling
for rebates for plug-in purchases and asking local businesses and
governments to buy the vehicles. "We can reduce costs [of driving] to
consumers, improve the air quality, and increase revenues to the city,"
says Roger Duncan, deputy general manager of city-owned Austin Energy.

Ordinary hybrids such as the Prius are already popular. Moving to plug-ins
is the next logical step -- and the idea is getting high-level
endorsements. Last December, the bipartisan National Commission on Energy
Policy tapped plug-ins as a key part of its energy strategy. The Set
America Free coalition, a group of conservatives and enviros, is pushing
for $2 billion in incentives, pointing out that "if all cars on the road
are hybrids and half are plug-in hybrid vehicles, U.S. oil imports would
drop by 8 million barrels per day." Americans will be "gassing up" their
cars with electrons, predicts Romm: "I would bet the mortgage on it." But
not quite the whole house.

By John Carey in Washington

Emacs!