Hooray
written by Chris , September 02, 2008

Good to see their ahead of schedule. Check out my take on this: http://www.oceanchampions.org/blog/?p=41

In the meantime, this recent Time articl
written by plooger , September 04, 2008

http://www.time.com/time/busin...html?imw=Y

In August, he took matters into his own hands and had his 2008 Toyota Prius converted into a plug-in hybrid, which doubled its gas mileage ..... Although the Prius is already a hybrid gas-electric model, the additional battery that Cox had installed enables him to travel more than 20 miles on all-electric power.

Electric Hybrid ptui
written by Gene , September 05, 2008

Where do you think the energy comes from anyway.
In LA, much of the electrical energy comes from a huge coal burning power plant in Arizona. Thats is true in most places because 75% of the power plants are all coal driven.

Plugin electrics are actually run on COAL!

coal?
written by Jonathan , September 10, 2008

If you charge your car with solar panels...no more coal to worry about.

Coal Argument is Hollow
written by Ken Grubb , September 11, 2008

EPRI studied the issue of PHEV impact on the power grid.

http://www.epri-reports.org

They concluded PHEVs will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and the power grid won't go down. Spend an hour or so and read the Exec Summaries, the Press Release, the FAQ and the Technology Primer. It should defuse the sky falling coal argument.

nighttime charging
written by tom engineer , September 16, 2008

US's grid has great nighttime electricity excess. As long as vehicle is charged at night, ZERO additional emissions are generated. Electricity otherwise would be wasted. This is an important point is that often overlooked when discussing Plug-ins

Electricity is always cleaner
written by kurdt , September 29, 2008

@Gene:
Nevermind San Onofre, which is far closer and uses nuclear. Besides, the dirtiest of US coal plants is still cleaner than a car's gasoline engine. There is a whole lot you can do when you have a professionally maintained and optimized large scale generator and no weight restrictions as far as generation and cleaning of the air.

So yes, while coal is dirty, if you consider the tiny amount of that plant's output that will fuel your car (there are 10 million folks in LA), I'm sure you'll find that coal is much cleaner.

And since it seems you haven't read any other stories on this site, the beauty of plug-ins are that they can be renewably powered. Even when they're not, they can be charged during low-demand off-peak hours when much of the electricity is going to waste anyhow.

Your sort of "plug-ins run on coal" FUD is just as bad as the story about how Hummers are greener than Priuses.

Toyota is rather late
written by Vince , October 30, 2008

There are already many retrofit plug-in priuses on the market with better specs! See for example http://www.spinnovation.com. How can Toyota make a product that performs worse than products that have been out there fr years?