Plug-in Hybrid ● Evolution from Hybrid to Electric Vehicle

Obviously it would be great to own an all-electric car, as long as you could drive for long distances on the batteries, and charge it up quickly as conveniently as you can fill up your car with gasoline.

Because it will take some time, and a lot of money, to develop a viable infrastructure for charging all-electric cars for widespread everyday use, the logical thing to do is make evolutionary changes to the current hybrid so that we can eventually and realistically rid ourselves of dependency on foreign petroleum.

The big trend in hybrid development at this time is in finding ways to make the hybrid less dependent on foreign gasoline and more electric vehicle oriented.

The biggest selling hybrids don’t at this time support ways for you to directly charge the batteries that drive the electric motor. If you want to use as little foreign gasoline as possible with these current hybrids, you really don’t have much control over how to accomplish that. In other words you can’t plug the batteries into your electrical socket like you do with your cell phone at night.

This is what many people in the hybrid business are working on very quickly and very industriously.

Enter the Plug-In Hybrid

There are many new plug-in hybrids that are coming onto the market in the next few years. Theses plug-in cars are known in the industry as PHEVs (stands for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle).

They give you the ability to plug your car into an electrical socket or charging system and thus give the electrical part of your hybrid more range and usefulness. If you’re smart about how often and where you charge your car (home and work, etc.) you might not need to use gasoline at all.

Not only are car manufacturers making new plug-in hybrids, some entrepreneurs are converting current hybrids (like the Prius, Ford Escape, etc.) into plug-in hybrids. If you’re mechanically handy you can buy conversion kits to install on your own.

Many car companies are working to bring PHEV models to showrooms near you by around 2011-2012. The Toyota Prius plug-in may be the first one to market. There’s a lot of talk about Chrysler, GM, VW, Volvo and Ford having PHEV models in the works too. The Chevy Volt has probably received the most publicity. There are several other smaller companies working on this, as well as BYD Auto of China.

The main problem with these cars going mainstream is that the cost of the new technology is driving the eventual sales price up to around $40K. This is a major problem.

The PHEV sector, it appears, will need a big breakthrough in battery technology to really bring the prices down for new PHEV cars and make them affordable. Until then, you can consider converting a used hybrid into a PHEV.