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...m.p.g.-of-gas car may sound like a pie-in-the-sky dream. But in fact, it is technologically possible. Green-car enthusiasts in California are experimenting with innovative plug-in technology, while DaimlerChrysler will soon be testing its own plug-in van. And ethanol has long been used as a fuel. Indeed, Domenici's committee last month adopted a measure in the energy bill requiring gasoline refiners to increase the ethanol they use each year to 8 billion gal. by 2012, up from 5 billion gal. mandated by the House...
...PITCHING PLUG...
MEET GREG HANSSEN, A PARTNER IN A SMALL BATTERY-prototype testing firm in California called EnergyCS. Hanssen was approached last year by Felix Kramer for help in building a dashboard monitor for a Prius that he and CalCars, his group of plug-in advocates, had converted into a crude plug-in. (The original Prius' batteries charge up when the car brakes.) Hanssen was inspired. He enlisted the support of another privately held firm, Clean-Tech, to devise a more sophisticated version of the plug-in Prius. Hanssen recently showed off his prototype at the 2005 Tour de Sol, a green...
EnergyCS and Clean-Tech have launched a start-up called E-Drive Systems, which plans to sell by next year kits to convert the Prius into a plug-in (though the modifications will void the warranty). At speeds below 35 m.p.h., Hanssen's Prius sails along on its 18 lithium batteries for up to 30 miles at a go--well within the range envisioned by Gaffney. The conversion cost isn't cheap: $15,000, which Hanssen hopes to cut to around $10,000. "It won't pay for itself in gas savings," Hanssen admits, "but neither does the Prius. People...
Toyota isn't exactly jumping on the bandwagon. "Customers," says Ed LaRocque, Toyota's national manager of advanced technology, "are not telling us plug-in hybrids are something they'd like to see at no cost, let alone what we estimate would be an additional $15,000." Other car companies, including Ford and General Motors, seem to feel the same way. But DaimlerChrysler sees the field differently. It has spent millions to modify a handful of gas and diesel-powered Mercedes Sprinter vans into plug-ins, which will be tested as early as this fall by commercial partners...