(Photo: Pat Cadam in San Diego to convert two gas-electric hybrid vehicles to plug-in models for SDG&E. Ed Joyce/KPBS )
Imagine driving a car that gets more than 100 miles a gallon. New gas-electric plug-in cars are now being tested in San Diego that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They also save a lot of money at the gas pump. KPBS Environmental Reporter Ed Joyce tells us the future may be here now for the new hybrid cars.
How would you like to cut your gasoline bill by 75 percent? New plug-in gas-electric hybrid cars now being tested use more electricity stored in batteries and less gasoline. The vehicles are recharged by plugging into a standard electric outlet. Early results show the cars get from 80 to 100 miles per gallon. Unfortunately the only way to get one now to have an existing gas-electric hybrid converted.
Pat Cadam makes a living converting Toyota and Honda hybrids for his San Francisco-area customers.
Cadam was in San Diego converting two gas-electric hybrid vehicles to plug-in models for San Diego Gas and Electric . He says the conversions are part of a transition phase in auto transportation.
Cadam: It's the important step because the public isn't ready to jump straight from internal combustion engine out to an electric car. They need that transition both you know, sort of intellectually and I think realistically. And this is the solution.
But converting gas-electric hybrids to plug-in models comes at a price many can't pay - about $10,000. But in a few years that could change. SDG&E is testing the two cars for six months. It's part of a study to compare the efficiency of standard hybrids to the plug-in models. The company's Rick Morrow says the testing could also spur automakers to develop affordable plug-in hybrids.
Morrow: So the equipment manufacturers as they're designing and building new cars they can look at these technologies and say 'that ought to be part of our lineup.' Because that's when we really see the behavioral changes take place, we see the customer interest drawing these products into the market and that's when you really see the shift and the change in the marketplace.
SDG&E also helped pay for a recent study conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council .
Luke Tonachel with the NRDC's vehicles program, says the study shows that using gas tanks as a backup power source shifts emissions from cars' tailpipes to utility grids. And if enough of us plug-in, that's like taking 82-million-gasoline-only cars off the road. Unlike some other experimental hybrid cars, Tonachel says the plug-ins aren't limited to short distances.
Tonachel: Once the battery that holds the electricity in your car is depleted you can continue to operate as a regular hybrid, so you really have no limitation in your range.
He calls the plug-in gas-electric hybrids a win-win for the environment and for our pocketbooks.
Tonachel: I think that more that consumers hear about them the more they realize that there's a real benefit to a vehicle like this. It could reduce the operating costs for the consumer as well as address the global warming problems that people are concerned about.
But how soon will we have a chance to buy one? That depends on the automakers. Tonachel says public demand and lower battery costs could mean we'll see the plug-ins at auto showrooms within three or four years. Ed Joyce, KPBS News.
