Gas pinch solution offered
Richard Gould | Daily Herald James Poch, executive director of the Plug-In Hybrid Coalition of the Carolinas, drove his plug-in hybrid car to Roanoke Rapids to explain how it gets 100 miles per gallon.
RICHARD GOULD, HERALD STAFF WRITER
ROANOKE RAPIDS - The wait for the car that gets 100 miles per gallon is over, according to James Poch, executive director of the Plug-In Hybrid Coalition of the Carolinas.
A standard Toyota Prius gets 45 to 50 miles per gallon, but Poch's gets 100. That's because he's had his car outfitted with a conversion kit that doubles the power and capacity of the car's battery, and a power cord that allows the car to be charged by plugging it in to any standard outlet. That means the car starts with a full charge rather than having to charge its battery as it is driven.
That mileage does have a limit, though. The 100 miles per gallon figure is for the first 30 miles because that's about how long the car's initial battery charge will last. After that, the car gets standard Prius mileage because it's re-charging its battery as it drives.
The battery is projected to last seven to 10 years before it will need to be replaced.
Poch could be called the Johnny Appleseed of plug-in hybrids. He was in sales for 15 years and decided he wanted to represent a product he believed in. Now he spends his days running his non-profit coalition and spreading the word about the technology that's available today. He's not alone; there are 84 plug-in hybrid prototypes on America's roads.
The plug-in hybrid movement started in California when a group of former electric car owners got together and petitioned Toyota to increase the size and capacity of the Prius battery and develop a system for it to plug it in to a standard home's electrical outlet.
When Toyota declined, they developed their own conversion kit and are now campaigning across America to build enough public demand that the automakers will adopt plug-in hybrid technology on their factory production vehicles and offer it to their customers.
Today the conversion kit costs $10,500, but that price will drop if it gets used in mass production.
“Our mission is to accelerate the adoption of this technology for environmental, economic and national security reasons,” explains Poch.
He says plug-in hybrids produce 30 to 60 percent fewer emissions, could save $500 to $800 per year in annual fuel costs and could reduce America's dependence on foreign oil by three to four million barrels per day. He added that utilizing alternative fuel sources like ethanol would almost eliminate the need for foreign oil.
Unlike hydrogen cars, which will require the construction of fueling stations and the perfection of new technology, plug-in hybrids utilize the technology and infrastructure we already have. “Why waste time with hydrogen when we already have proven technology?” he asks.
One argument Poch said he hears regularly is that, while using plug-in hybrid cars does save fuel and lowers emissions, it just switches the burden to power plants. Some argue that if everyone had one of these cars, it would require more power plants to be built and more coal and petroleum to be burned to fuel them.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, however, America already has enough off-peak capacity to power 84 percent of America's passenger vehicles and light duty trucks if they were plug-in hybrids.
The car runs extremely quiet in town because at speeds below 34 miles per hour, the car runs on electricity only - kind of like a big golf cart. Then when the speedometer hits 34 and higher, the gasoline engine engages and it drives like a standard car, he said. “It's the best of both worlds. This is a real car for real people with real lives.”
Poch said, “My worry is that this will be kept a niche product and will take 30 years to deploy. I want this adopted in the near future rather than in the distant future.”
Auto manufacturers tend to drag their feet when new innovations become available because integrating them cuts into profit margins for the first couple of years, Poch said, but he expects GM and Toyota to bring plug-in hybrids to the market in 2010.
Poch's message is simple: “This could really solve a lot of our problems. This car is three times better than anything on the road today.”
For more information on plug-in hybrids, visit www.plugincarolina.org.
