Related press releases
Related research
Electricity Cost for Powering a Plug-in Hybrid One-Quarter of Powering a Like-Sized Gasoline vehicle
:: 20 July, 2008
Gasoline-electric hybrids now, like Toyota’s popular Prius, don’t need to plug in—you just fill their tanks with gasoline and the battery keeps charged by the internal combustion engine and by energy generated from the wheels when braking (a feature known as “regenerative braking”). The battery then powers the electric motor when it is called into service during idling, backing-up, crawling in gridlock, maintaining speed while cruising, and for extra uphill power when needed. As such, the electric motor is essentially a back-up engine while the hybrid relies mainly on the gasoline engine.
Plug-in hybrids take the concept further by plugging into a regular electric outlet to enable the vehicle to operate solely on its electric motor for ranges of 40-50 miles or more on a single charge. This has profound implications for commuters who need only drive short distances to and from work every day and who may be able to do so solely on electric power. The gasoline engine then becomes the supplemental one for when the car needs to travel farther than the electric engine can take it.
According to researchers at the University of California Davis, the electricity cost for powering a plug-in hybrid is only about one-quarter of the cost of powering a like-sized gasoline vehicle. Other benefits include far fewer fill-ups at gas stations and the convenience of recharging at home.
Toyota, currently the world’s largest producer of hybrid vehicles by far thanks to the success of its Prius, announced that it expects to have a commercially viable plug-in hybrid available to consumers as early as 2010 and is now testing prototype versions of plug-in hybrids at two California universities.
Felix Kramer of the California Cars Initiative (CCI), a non-profit dedicated to promoting plug-ins, called Toyota’s announcement “stunning and very welcome,” and says that these vehicles will be the cleanest practical cars on the road in a world where gas stations dot just about every intersection. The promise of such cars, says CCI on its website, is that drivers will have a “cleaner, cheaper, quieter car for local travel, and the gas tank is always there should you need to drive longer distances.”
U.S. automakers are also jumping onto the plug-in bandwagon. General Motors says that it will have mass-market plug-in hybrids—modifications of its Saturn Vue and Chevrolet Volt—on the road by 2010. Ford has also developed a small fleet of plug-ins, but is not yet ready to offer them to the public. Fisker, a U.S. start-up focusing on the creation of high performance, energy efficient vehicles, plans to sell an $80,000 plug-in hybrid sports car by late 2009. Chrysler’s Sprinter van was the first plug-in from a major U.S. manufacturer, but it is only presently available to a limited number of institutions as a fleet vehicle.
Plug-ins have also caught on elsewhere. Chinese carmaker BYD plans to sell a plug-in hybrid sedan in the U.S. within five years. And Volkswagen hopes to have a plug-in hybrid Golf ready to roll by 2010.
About Plug-in Hybrid
A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid vehicle with batteries that can be recharged by connecting a plug to an electric power source. It shares the characteristics of both conventional hybrid electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles, having an internal combustion engine and batteries for power. Most PHEVs on the road today are passenger cars, but there are also PHEV versions of commercial passenger vans, utility trucks, school buses, motorcycles, scooters, and military vehicles. PHEVs are sometimes called grid-connected hybrids, gas-optional hybrids, or GO-HEVs.
The cost for electricity to power plug-in hybrids for all-electric operation in California has been estimated at less than one quarter of the cost of gasoline (petrol). Compared to conventional vehicles, PHEVs can reduce air pollution and dependence on petroleum, and lessen greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Plug-in hybrids use no fossil fuel during their all-electric range if their batteries are charged from nuclear or renewable energy sources. Other benefits include improved national energy security, fewer fill-ups at the filling station, the convenience of home recharging, opportunities to provide emergency backup power in the home, and vehicle to grid applications.
On the other hand, a plug-in hybrid's all-electric range is designated by PHEV-[miles] or PHEV[kilometers]km in which the number represents the distance the vehicle can travel on battery power alone. For example, a PHEV-20m can travel twenty miles without using its internal combustion engine, or about 32 kilometers, so it may also be designated as a PHEV32km.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 defines a plug-in electric drive vehicle as a vehicle that:
draws motive power from a battery with a capacity of at least 4 kilowatt-hours;
can be recharged from an external source of electricity for motive power; and
is a light-, medium-, or heavy-duty motor vehicle or nonroad vehicle.
