Considering all the aftermarket companies that are springing up that will turn your Prius into a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), have you ever wondered why automakers haven’t rolled PHEVs off the assembly line yet?
I know I have. I would really like to have a PHEV – the idea of a car that can drive around town for 40 or 50 miles without starting its gas engine sounds really cool to me.
So where are these PHEVs?
Some people accuse automakers of being slow, but the real problem lies with the very thing that powers your laptop: the lithium-ion battery.
You see, while a lithium-ion battery usually does a pretty good job of powering a laptop, cell phone, or power tool, have you noticed how these batteries lose performance after a few years? Heck, my cell phone is only 18 months old and its battery has gone from lasting almost 7 days to just over 2 days.
In the automotive world, long-term battery performance like that of a cell phone is completely unacceptable. Automakers need batteries to last at least 10 years or 150,000 miles before you start seeing them.
Fortunately, several companies, such as A123Systems, are getting close to reaching those numbers, so that hurdle is about to be overcome, probably sometime in 2007.
The next big hurdle to overcome is battery safety. I think just about everyone heard about the Dell battery recall last year. A battery that starts to catch fire in a laptop is a huge inconvenience; however, a battery that catches fire while driving 70 mph down the interstate can be a disaster. Lithium-ion battery safety is the next big issue keeping PHEVs from becoming production vehicles.
The latter is one of simple economy – price.
Currently, converting a hybrid electric vehicle, like a Prius, to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle will cost you around $6,000 in parts, on top of the premium you pay for the Prius. For production cars, you can initially expect PHEVs to cost around $10,000 more than their conventional counterpart. Once production ramps up, that number will increase, but initially, there’s a much higher price to pay for a PHEV.
So while the technology is nearly ready (much closer than hydrogen), there are legitimate reasons why Ford, GM, and Toyota are not yet bringing PHEVs to market. They’re coming, and soon, but for you, if you want a PHEV, you’ll either have to do it yourself or have an aftermarket conversion company, like Hybrids Plus, do it for you.