Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak may be the first mayor in the nation to drive a plug-in hybrid vehicle as his official city car.

Since he was first elected in 2002, Mayor Rybak’s official car has been a Toyota Prius. But the dramatically superior gas mileage of a plug-in hybrid vehicle prompted him to make the switch: he had his hybrid converted to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, from which he expects to get about 70 miles per gallon (mpg) compared to his average 40 mpg with the Prius.

A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is like a regular hybrid with a cord. That is, its battery can be recharged by plugging it into a regular 120-volt outlet.

Typical of many PHEVs, Mayor Rybak’s car can travel about 30 miles solely on battery power if the speeds are 30 mph or less. If he drives further or needs to go faster, the car automatically switches over to using the gas engine. But for local city driving — when speeds are low and distances are shorter — he could go days without using any gasoline to power the engine.

Although most of Minnesota’s electricity comes from coal power, powering a vehicle with the electric grid is still cleaner than gasoline. But the Mayor and other city officials want to make it even cleaner: Minneapolis has applied for a state grant to install solar panels on some city buildings so that future plug-in cars could charge up using solar power instead of fossil fuels. Rybak told the Minnesota Daily:

It became clear to me that the two big things we had to do were convert to plug-in hybrids and find a way to have them use electricity from non-coal sources … I become very frustrated with people saying we need to do years of research on all these issues. Research is great, but the technology is there right now.

Last year, Minnesota became the first state in the nation to pass legislation promoting plug-in hybrids. The law instructs the state to buy plug-in hybrids on a preferred basis when they become available and encourages Minnesota State University - Mankato to develop flex-fuel plug-in hybrid vehicles (plug-ins that can run on an ethanol blend).

Minneapolis has about 100 government vehicles that are either hybrids or use E-85 fuel (an 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline blend). Leadership from the city and supportive government policies could make plug-in hybrids a more common occurrence on Twin Cities roads.

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Photo Source: City of Minneapolis

Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest electricity utility and one of the largest in the nation, is showcasing a Toyota Prius that it has converted into a plug-in hybrid at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group Alternative Energy Solutions Summit in California this week. The utility may be the first in the U.S. to demonstrate that a plug-in hybrid can power a home.

Like a traditional hybrid, plug-in hybrids have both an electric motor and a gasoline engine. But their larger batteries and ability to be charged with any 120-volt outlet allows for even better gas mileage than the 55 mpg average of a regular Prius. Since plug-in hybrid batteries can power the vehicle for up to 60 miles, about half of the cars in America could go everywhere they needed to go in a day without using any gas. Some estimates set the average fuel economy at 100 miles per gallon.

So what’s different about PG&E’s plug-in hybrid? Unlike most plug-ins that take in electricity from the grid and then are driven around during the day, the PG&E concept car demonstrated that any plug-in can also be used as a two-way generator.

These “vehicle-to-grid,” or V2G, cars are charged by plugging into a three-prong, 110- to 120-volt outlet. But if a home needs energy, like during a blackout or during high demand when electricity prices increase, a switch can be flipped to send the charge the other way, from the car to the home.

PG&E’s plug-in hybrid car powered a small electric heater and lights. The car could supposedly even run home appliances for several hours with a full battery charge. The utility hopes that the new concept car will demonstrate new ways to use hybrids and increase the demand for the cleaner vehicles. California’s renewable energy laws are pushing utilities to cut global warming emissions. Plug-in hybrids help them reach that goal by allow ing homeowners to use more energy at night – when wind power and cleaner fuels are available - and less energy during high-demand days when natural gas and coal plants produce the energy.

Prices for plug-in hybrids are expected to range from $3,000 to $5,000 more than typical hybrids, and it’s unclear how much money a homeowner would save by charging a hybrid with electricity. Although they would be buying more energy from their utility, they would save on gas costs. And although many areas of the country would be powering their plug-in hybrids with coal-fired power from the grid, governoment studies have shown that powering cars with electricity creates much less global warming pollution than power them with gasoline.

CalCars, a nonprofit organization that has converted about 20 hybrids to plug-in hybrids in the past three years, expects the two-way generator technology to be about 5-6 years away.

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San Jose Mercury News, via Green@WorkToday

BMW and DaimlerChrysler are teaming up to develop hybrid transmission systems for rear-wheel-drive premium cars.

These transmission systems will be for so-called “mild hybrids,” which boost acceleration and can make engines work more efficiently in stop-and-go traffic, but can’t run on battery power alone and don’t offer the same fuel savings as a full hybrid (like a Toyota Prius, which connects an electric motor and batteries to a standard combustion engine.). The carmakers should have the mild hybrid vehicles ready for the road in the next 3 years.

The hybrid move by German automakers has surprised some analyists. BMW and DaimlerChrysler have dismissed hybrids as a passing fad, but the popularity of vehicles like the Prius and the increasing concerns about global warming have them rethinking earlier assumptions. They even see full hybrids are on the horizon: Daimler's Mercedes-Benz is expected to launch a full hybrid vehicle within a year or so and BMW plans a full hybrid within three years.

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