At Maker Faire Austin Oct 20-21, the California Cars Initiative will sponsor an open source Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) “Conversion Demonstration”. PHEV conversions to Toyota Prius hybrids add an additional battery pack that can be plugged in at night so that the electric energy is used to displace gasoline to get over 100 miles per gallon of gasoline plus about $.02/mile of electricity. This conversion will provide this performance for the first 20 miles of daily driving. (Others, using more costly batteries can provide up to 50 miles a day of PHEV driving.) After the energy in the second pack is depleted, the converted vehicle seamlessly operates as a standard hybrid vehicle. Batteries for this conversion are being supplied by CleanPower Battery Technologies, Inc. California Cars Initiative is a nonprofit group of entrepreneurs, engineers, environmentalists, drivers and consumers promoting plug-in hybrid cars through advocacy and demonstration projects. CalCars sponsors the EAA-PHEV project that has designed this conversion. For more information, visit the CalCars site here. Link.
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