There are no commercial PHEV cars available on the
market just yet. There are several companies selling after market kits
to convert your hybrid electric car to a PHEV. Conventional Hybrid cars
such as the Toyota Prius charge the battery while the car is running on
gasoline.
There are experiments being conducted with an
additional electric battery in conventional hybrid cars such as the
Prius. A PHEV allows you to charge the battery through a renewable
source of energy at a cost of about 10c per Kwh. The experiments have
shown that a single charge on the converted Prius can can take you
about 30 miles at a cost of less than 50c. Theoretically, if you
traveled shorter distances between charges you would never have to pay
for gas.
However, car manufacturers are not jumping on the PHEV
bandwagon just yet. High price of batteries and the additional weight
and space requirements are keeping them from using these yet.
To
reduce our dependency on middle east Oil, this is the way of the
future. With the support from powerful sources such as the US
President, independent engineers are plugging away at making the
Plug-in a reality. Companies such as Google are supporting innovation
by offering grants. Google has even built a new parking garage on its
campus that has electric outlets for pluggable cars.
Imagine Never Having To Fill Gas In Your Toyota Prius
Hybrid cars that could never need you to fill gas? It
could happen in the near future. How, you ask? Plug-in hybrid electric
vehicles or PHEV for short. A PHEV is a hybrid electric vehicle that
allows you to recharge the electric battery simply by plugging it into
a wall socket.
