Roger Duncan and EV World
Roger Duncan was interviewed by Bill Moore on April 6th.
You can read the entire interview or listen to it
here.Austin Strikes Up The Band for Plug-In HybridsBy
Bill Moore Austin
April 06, 2005
Several weeks ago, a newspaper story appeared that reported the City of Austin was prepared to offer substantial rebates for purchases of plug-in hybrids. EV World linked to and archived the story, which very quickly precipitated a hasty email from a reader at Austin Energy who asked us to remove the link because the story was not factually correct. We immediately responded, but the first question I wanted to ask Roger Duncan was what were the facts.
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Austin Energy is a public utility, and our mayor and city council... agreed that we wanted to put together an incentive package for plug-in hybrids. As part of that package, Austin Energy will pull together a package of rebates for the first plug-in hybrids that come into our service area. We have not determined the level of rebates or how many there would be.
"I gave an example during a talk recently that, for example, we may give a $1000 to each owner of a new
plug-in hybrid for the first thousand vehicles that came into our service area; and that would be a $1 million set aside. That, unfortunately, was printed as fact, when I was using it as an example. But we have determined that we will be giving rebates in the future. We just have not yet determined the amount or the date", Duncan explained.
Austin Energy is the tenth largest public power utility in the United States. Overseen by the major and city council who sit on the utility board of directors, Austin Energy generates nearly all of its own electric power, nearly equally divided in thirds between coal, natural gas and nuclear power.
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We also sell a lot of renewable energy", he pointed out to me. "
In fact, the last three years we have sold more renewable energy than any other utility in the country. Primarily, it's wind from west Texas that we transmit in. We have also been a very aggressive energy efficiency, energy conservation company for many years and are generally recognized in the field as a progressive utility".
While returning home from the Fuel Cell Forum in San Antonio last November, my wife and I drove past many of those wind turbines. Duncan said that Austin now purchases some
200 megawatts of power from those very same wind farms, as part of its goal to be known as the
"
Clean Energy Capital of the World".
It's that ambitious goal that eventually led to the mayor and city council endorsing the plug-in hybrid concept.
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The mayor and council asked us what else we could do to really ramp it up", Duncan said.
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After looking at things, I came back and told council that we would continue to expand our renewables and conservation, but that we really were not doing anything in the transportation area more so than any other city, in my opinion. As we began to look into it further, I also told council that I thought that eventually there would be a unification of the transportation and electric sectors for a variety of reasons.
"So, the council passed a resolution July of last year (2004) asking us to look into unification of the transportation and electric sectors, and its impact on Austin Energy. And when we got into that, we became very excited over
plug-in hybrids... We came back and told the council that we thought that the hybrids that are on the roads today were sort of the first step towards unifying with the electric sector, but plug-in hybrids would provide a cheaper cost for our customers, extra revenue for the utility, cleaner air for our city; and that eventually we thought that this was the way that the transportation sector had to go".
Interestingly, despite Texas' reputation as the world center for the oil and gas industry, Duncan observed that the state has more
renewable energy resources from wind, solar and biomass than it has in its remaining fossil fuel reserves.
The
FFPHEVOkay, I know that's a mouthful of an acronym. It stands for "Flexible Fuel Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle". This is Austin Energy's dream machine -- and that of an increasing number of influential Washington, D.C. policy makers.
"By that we mean a vehicle that has a flexible fuel internal combustion engine that can burn either gasoline or E85 or other mixes and has the capability of being plugged into the electric grid to charge the battery. It's pretty much that simple," he explained. "We're not getting into detailed specs on the size of the battery or electric drive... We just want the basic concept that you can plug it in any electric grid and at the same time, you can drive it off an internal combustion engine and have that flexibility.
"The advantages that we saw were several", Duncan continued. "First, when we did calculations on the cost to our consumers if they were able to plug in a vehicle overnight, we found that they would get... the equivalent of about
56 cents a gallon of gasoline for driving in an all-electric operating range. So, that got us very excited".
"Then we looked at the emission characteristics and we recognized that as I mentioned earlier, we sell a lot of green power and our wind comes in primarily at night as opposed to a hot summer afternoon, which is Austin's peak loads. So, we were excited about the prospect that we could take in even more wind at night for our night-time base loads and charge the vehicles and essentially have
wind-powered cars".
Duncan explained that shifting to plug-in hybrids offered the opportunity to also
replace downtown auto exhaust emissions, where the city has difficulty meeting federal ozone standards with remote power plant smokestacks, whose emissions the utility could better control. And in the case of power generated by wind, solar and nuclear, there would be
no emissions.
"We even did some preliminary calculations on our coal plant and we're optimistic that when others do the calculation there may even be some total emission offsets even from coal, if it's properly done".
What would Duncan like to see in the way of electric-only range in an electric plug-in hybrid? He responded that he thought a
40 mile electric-only range would be adequate to meet most Austin residents' driving needs. He also conceded that the concept of plugging in a hybrid car is really so new that most people in his community are still just getting familiar with the notion of gasoline-electric hybrids.
I asked Duncan what impact, if any, the eventual introduction of flexible fuel plug-in hybrids are likely to have on the local power grid; at what point does Austin Energy need to begin to add generating capacity and where will that power come from?
"The initial impact of plug-ins into the electric grid system is not going to have much impact because almost all utilities have
unused capacity sitting at night," he replied, noting that other utilities, spearheaded by the Electric Power Research Institute have examined this issue closely.
"Initially, we don't see any capacity additions. Obviously, if there's significant penetration of the market with plug-ins, there will have to be power plant additions", he remarked, conceding that if and when that does happen, the utility will probably look at 'clean coal' if energy conservation and renewable energy alone can't cover the added load.
"I think the reality is, you're just adding electric load and it's going to vary on a regional basis as to what the power plants and utilities do to add the load".
Duncan said that he has also looked at the concept of
vehicle-to-grid or V2G in which the passage of energy is bi-directional. A plug-in hybrid can accept charges from the grid, but can't share its stored energy with the home or the larger power grid. A V2G hybrid has built in circuitry and controls that permit the grid to pull some power out of the vehicle's battery or fuel cell to help during peak demand periods. The concept is worth more investigation in his view, but is also too immature to be considered seriously right now, unlike plug-ins hybrids.
It seems that nearly everyone in the know but carmakers are excited about the potential of plug-in hybrids. So, how do we bring them on board, I asked?
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Our approach is to simply is to create the market. The approach that we're taking here in Austin is that we want to demonstrate to carmakers that there are customers that want to buy them, in fact, there's a utility that wants to put up rebates. We want to then replicate that in the largest fifty cities in the United States".
Duncan sees utilities in those communities following Austin's lead in working with local government, industry, business and consumers to explain the benefits of the concept and stimulate demand for it. The goal is to have hundreds of thousands of people nationwide expressing interest in
plug-in hybrids, as well as millions of dollars in utility rebates.
"At that point, I think that the automakers will see that there is a
definite market there and will produce the automobiles".
Giving Hybrids A Real Jolt
Business Week
p.70
APRIL 11, 2005
ENVIRONMENT
By John Carey in Washington
A plug-in gas-electric vehicle may be key in saving fuel and cutting pollution. Is there a car that can cut America's oil imports to a trickle, dramatically reduce pollution, and do it all with currently available technology?
Greg Hanssen thinks so. His company has already built one suchcar -- a converted Toyota Prius that gets 100 to 180 mpg in a typical commute.
Andrew A. Frank thinks so, too. The University of California atDavis professor has constructed a handful of such vehicles. His latest: a converted 325-horsepower Ford Explorer that goes 50 miles using no gas at all, then gets 30 mpg. "
It goes like a rocket," he says. These vehicles are quickly becoming the darlings of strange bedfellows: both conservative hawks and environmentalists, who see such fuel efficiencyas key to ensuring national security and fighting climate change.
Reducing dependence on the turbulent Middle East "
is a war issue," says former CIA Chief R. James Woolsey, who calls the cars' potential "
phenomenal." What's the secret? It's as simple as adding more batteries and a plug to hybrids such as the Prius. That way, the batteries can be charged up at any electrical outlet -- letting this so-called plug-in hybrid travel 20 to 60miles under electric power alone.
Since most Americans drive fewer than 30miles a day, such a car could go months without visiting the filling station. "
The only time you would have to gas up is when you go out of town," says Felix Kramer, who founded the nonprofit California CarsInitiative to promote plug-ins. Run the internal combustion engine on a blend of gasoline and biofuels like ethanol, and it would use almost no oil products at all.
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That changes the world," says Frank J. Gaffney Jr., president of the Center for Security Policy.
"TRIVIAL MATTER"
Professor Frank, 72, first began thinking about a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) years ago. "
But now all the pieces are here," he says.Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ) has solved the big engineering problems with the Prius, so "it's a trivial matter to make a plug-in," says Joseph J. Romm, a former Energy Dept official. Greg Hanssen and his colleagues at Energy CS, for example, replaced the Prius' existing 1.3-kilowatt-hour nickel metalhydride battery with an advanced 9-kWh lithium ion battery pack. They hope to offer a conversion kit to Prius owners. The weight penalty? About 170pounds.
Car owners might not want to try this at home. Such a conversion will probably void Toyota's warranty. But big companies are building their own vehicles. In a project sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute(EPRI), several utilities, government agencies, and DaimlerChrysler (DCX ), the carmaker is building a fleet of up to 40 PHEV delivery vans. Four will be coming to U.S. cities for tests starting in June. Research at EPRI predicts that the plug-in vehicles, based on DaimlerChrysler's popularSprinter van, will get a gas mileage boost of at least 50% over conventional vans.
EPRI Program Manager Robert Graham is convinced that Toyota already has prototype plug-ins running. Toyota says no. "
We keep looking at the concept, and at some point it might be feasible, but it isn't there yet,"says David Hermance, Toyota's executive engineer for environmental engineering.
For its part, DaimlerChrysler sees its van project "
as a great opportunity to develop the vehicles we foresee in the future," says technology spokesman Nick Cappa. The company's first hybrid offerings will be conventional, but plug-ins might eventually be an option, he says. Auto makers' reluctance to plunge in quickly frustrates evangelists likeProfessor Frank. "
If it is such a damn good idea, why are the car companies not adopting plug-ins?" he asks. "
The simple answer is that they don't want to change what they are making."
But it's also not clear how much more people will pay for the cars. Hybrids are estimated to cost $2,000 to$5,000 more than conventional cars to make, and the larger batteries for plug-ins would add several thousands dollars more."
UNCERTAINTY
Proponents predict costs will drop with high-volume production. But making the investment to build hundreds of thousands of PHEVs is a giant risk, especially since there are competing approaches to higher fuel efficiency, such as advanced diesels or upgraded gasoline or hydrogen engines. Plus, no one knows if gas prices will rise enough to spur demand for high mileage cars. "
All these technologies are great. But there is a tremendous amountof uncertainty," says David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for AutomotiveResearch.
That's why some plug-in advocates are striving to create a market for automakers. On Mar. 3, the city of Austin, Tex., passed a resolution calling for rebates for plug-in purchases and asking local businesses and governments to buy the vehicles.
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We can reduce costs [of driving] to consumers, improve the air quality, and increase revenues to the city,"says Roger Duncan, deputy general manager of city-owned Austin Energy. Ordinary hybrids such as the Prius are already popular. Moving to plug-ins is the next logical step -- and the idea is getting high-level endorsements.
Last December, the bipartisan National Commission on EnergyPolicy tapped plug-ins as a key part of its energy strategy. The Set America Free coalition, a group of conservatives and enviros, is pushing for $2 billion in incentives, pointing out that "
if all cars on the roadare hybrids and half are plug-in hybrid vehicles, U.S. oil imports would drop by 8 million barrels per day."
Americans will be "
gassing up" their cars with electrons, predicts Romm: "
I would bet the mortgage on it."
But not quite the whole house.
Report on Transportation Convergence
On Feb 28th Roger Duncan delivered the
Report to the City Manager on Transportation Convergence to the Council Here is the Executive Summary
The Perfect StormAccording to an increasing number of policy makers, industry analysts, and environmental groups, there is a growing awareness of a
Perfect Storm of conditions that may change how we drive and what we drive.
This perfect storm of strategic, economic, and environmental conditions compels us to find ways, within a relatively short period of time, to dramatically reduce oil consumption.
Some of these national organizations have even called for a “
Set America Free” project.
Important Key Elements in this project include
plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and other flexible fuel vehicles. It calls for using electricity as a transportation fuel. Specifically, in the policy recommendations, the Set American Free proponents call for incentives to enable new players, such as utilities, to enter the transportation fuels market.
Alternatives to Petroleum
There is no “silver bullet” that will easily and cheaply replace petroleum. Rather, there will be many solutions that will combine to first reduce oil consumption, and eventually completely replace it for transportation purposes.
The major alternatives to petroleum are efficiency, alternative fuels, hydrogen, and Electric Fuel. Electricity provides a multi-fuel alternative to petroleum. Electricity can either do the work of running a transportation vehicle, or produce an alternative fuel for the transportation vehicle. It is both a “fuel” and a “fuel maker.”
Electric Fuel in the Transportation Sector
The idea of using
electric fuel to power transportation devices is not new. It is not even uncommon. Many cities in Europe and the rest of the world use bus and light rail systems that are powered by overhead lines.
When Henry Ford finally put a good engine and plentiful gasoline all together in his famous Model T, the head start that Edison gave the electric car industry was lost. And within a decade, the electric car disappeared.
Now, the major reasons behind that disappearance are changing. An electric gallon of gasoline is less expensive than a petroleum-based gallon of gas. Plug-in hybrid cars have no range limitations, and lithium ion batteries can provide 200 to 300 mile ranges for all- electric vehicles. And the price of an electrically fueled vehicle (EFV), although still higher, is only incrementally higher. The savings from the fuel cost differential can make the electric choice a wise economic choice, as well as a solid environmental choice.
The Gas-Optional Vehicle
We think that a more appropriate designation for a flexible fuel plug-in hybrid should be a “gas-optional vehicle”. You don’t have to put gas in it. You can if you want to, but it would not be necessary.
The Impacts on Austin and Austin Energy
Electrification of the transportation sector is a very attractive idea for Austin Energy.
One, the
transportation sector is roughly equal to the electric sector in Austin. It is therefore a market, which if penetrated, can provide substantial revenue.
Two, electrification of the transportation sector will have substantial
environmental benefits. Even in worse case scenarios, using the emissions profiles from our base load coal plants, an electric gallon of gas may be less polluting. Best-case scenarios using wind energy and other renewables are clearly superior to standard gasoline vehicles.
Three, as the rest of the world continues to place growing demand on the resource base, the likelihood of the continuation of
cheap oil seems remote at best. Diversifying into electrical fuel will provide Austin residents a hedge against the potential results of high demand and constrained availability.
Four, electrifying the transportation sector can be accomplished without substantial changes in our infrastructure, and it fits well with Austin Energy’s needs and capabilities.
Austin Energy’s load at night is 50% of its load in the afternoon. A fleet of electrical transportation appliances charged during this period would therefore not stress our system. More importantly, such a fleet of transportation appliances could store our nighttime wind energy, thus allowing for a
larger wind fraction in our overall generation portfolio.
Finally, if Austin Energy and Austin act now, we will be able to reap the benefits of the technological and
economic developments that will be realized; and we will profit as a community as such an electric transportation cluster develops.
Economic Impacts
Using AE’s average residential electric rate of 9 cents per kWh, total annual sales revenue from charging 100,000 EFVs would be 27 million dollars. Although this is a relatively small increase in our overall sales, this level of sales can be met with a minimum of costs.
In SummationThere is a sea change occurring. This sea change comes from a growing general consensus among many in Industry and Government that now is the time for Electric Utilities to become
participants in the transportation fuel market.
This general consensus comes from an understanding that our present liquid fuel supply chain is very stretched and very delicate. A major loss of production from a major supplier would bring reverberations throughout the liquid fuel markets.
Moreover, there is also a general consensus that the hydrogen fuel cell economy is further away than many have predicted. Because of this, advanced electric fuel appliances and other gas optional vehicles, such as the
plug-in hybrid are now on the radar screen.
A growing consensus is seeing the need for
Electric Fuel, and for the gas-optional plug-in hybrid that makes electric fuel the clean, convenient, and economic
Fuel of Choice.
Conclusions
Austin and Austin Energy should support the development of a “Gas-Optional Vehicle”/”plug-in hybrid” along with other appliances and strategies that will allow and facilitate the unification of the electric sector with the transportation sector.
Following is a proposed incentive package for Gas-Optional Vehicles. It is of particular note that this proposal is in agreement with some of the particular recommendations of the “Set America Free” document from the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
It calls to “Provide incentives to auto manufacturers to produce and consumers to purchase plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and FFVs (flexible fuel vehicles) across all vehicle models.” It asks governments to “Mandate substantial incorporation of plug-ins and FFVs into federal, state, municipal and covered fleets.” It further calls to “Provide incentives to enable new players, such as utilities, to enter the transportation fuel market”
We feel that the following recommendations will meet the multiple goals of providing incentives for flexible fuel plug-in hybrids and they will begin the process of developing a comprehensive electric fuel policy.
RECOMMENDATIONS
I. Initiate THE GAS OPTIONAL VEHICLE INCENTIVE PROGRAM
A. Promote flexible-fuel plug-in hybrid vehicles (Gas Optional Vehicles) through a combination of utility rebates, government fleet purchase commitments, private business fleet commitments, environmental consumerisms and other means.
1. Austin Energy develops a rebate program for a limited number of initial GOVs to government fleets, businesses, and general ratepayers.
2. City of Austin and other local government agencies indicate willingness to place future fleet orders for GOVs.
3. Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce leads effort to enlist private businesses to commit to future GOVs.
4. Austin environmental leaders promote purchase and advance orders of GOVs among Austin environmental community.
5. Austin community supports local, state and federal policies promoting GOVs.
6. Austin provides leadership to largest 50 cities in US to adopt a similar incentive.
7. Austin helps organize support for GOVs from key national sectors.
B. Open discussion with state and national organizations regarding the award of emission credits to utilities for reduction on emissions in the transportation sector, based on incentives and the source of fuel for the electrification.
II. Investigate and promote other forms of electric transportation such as Segways, electric bicycles and electric scooters.
III. Investigate the production of alternative fuels, such as hydrogen, as part of a comprehensive approach to powering the transportation sector.
IV. Develop A COMPREHENSIVE ELECTRIC FUEL INITIATIVE (CEFI)
A. To promote the use of Electric Fuel in the private sector.
B. To Promote Electric Fuel in Public Transportation
C. To promote Electric Transportation Fuel in our Schools, Universities, and other Institutions
Hybrid-Car Tinkerers Scoff at No-Plug-In Rule
New York TimesBy
DANNY HAKIMPublished: April 2, 2005
DETROIT, April 1 - Ron Gremban and Felix Kramer have modified a Toyota Prius so it can be plugged into a wall outlet.
This does not make
Toyota happy. The company has spent millions of dollars persuading people that hybrid electric cars like the Prius never need to be plugged in and work just like normal cars. So has
Honda, which even ran a commercial that showed a guy wandering around his Civic hybrid fruitlessly searching for a plug.
But the idea of making hybrid cars that have the option of being plugged in is supported by a diverse group of interests, from neoconservatives who support greater fuel efficiency to utilities salivating at the chance to supplant oil with electricity. If you were able to plug a hybrid in overnight, you could potentially use a lot less gas by cruising for long stretches on battery power only. But unlike purely electric cars, which take hours to charge and need frequent recharging, you would not have to plug in if you did not want to.
I've gotten anywhere from 65 to over 100 miles per gallon," said Mr. Gremban, an engineer at CalCars, a small nonprofit group based in Palo Alto, Calif. He gets 40 to 45 miles per gallon driving his normal Prius. And EnergyCS, a small company that has collaborated with CalCars, has modified another Prius with more sophisticated batteries; they claim their Prius gets up to 180 m.p.g. and can travel more than 30 miles on battery power.
"
If you cover people's daily commute, maybe they'll go to the gas station once a month," said Mr. Kramer, the founder of CalCars. "That's the whole idea."
Conventional hybrid electric cars already save gas. But if one looks at growth projections for oil consumption, hybrids will slow the growth rate of oil imports only marginally, at best, with the amount depending on how many hybrids are sold. To actually stop the growth of oil imports and potentially even reduce consumption, automakers have focused on developing cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
But fuel cells would require a complete reinvention of the automobile, not to mention the nation's gas stations, and the technology to put them on the road is still a long way from fruition. Advocates of plug-in hybrids say the technology for these vehicles is available now to the point that people are building them in garages.
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All of the relevant technology is at hand," said Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy and an assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration. His group was among a coalition of right-leaning organizations that released an energy plan this year promoting plug-ins as one way to increase fuel efficiency in light of the instability of the Middle East.
"
If you're thinking about this as an environmental issue first and foremost, you're missing the point," Mr. Gaffney said. Curbing dependence on foreign oil, he added, "
is a national security emergency."
Toyota, however, says the plug-in is not ready for prime time.
"They say this is the next great thing, but it just isn't," said David Hermance, an executive engineer at Toyota. "The electric utilities really want to sell electricity and they want to sell it to the transportation sector because that expands their market. They have an agenda."
But the plug-in hybrid is not just coming out of the garages of enthusiasts in California.
DaimlerChrysler has developed several dozen plug-in hybrid vans in cooperation with the Electric Power Research Institute, a group financed by more than 300 utilities, including the New York Power Authority and
Southern California Edison. Testing of the vans will start this year, and one will be used by The
New York Times on a newspaper delivery route in Manhattan. Several small companies are also developing or have developed plug-in hybrid prototypes.
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We think it's the only way to rekindle interest in electric transportation," said Robert Graham, who manages research into electric vehicles for the Research Institute. "
There are no technology hurdles at all. It's simply a matter of getting the vehicle built out on the street and getting people to recognize its value."
For power companies, the notion of people plugging in cars overnight represents not only a new way to make money, but the vehicles would also draw power mostly during off hours which would improve efficiency, because power plants cannot simply shut down at night as demand diminishes.
As it stands, though, modifying a hybrid like the Prius to enable it to plug in would add perhaps $2,000 to $3,000 to the cost of a car that is already roughly $3,000 more expensive than conventional gas cars. Advocates say the costs would be much lower if such cars were mass-produced by a major automaker.
But Nick Cappa, a spokesman for DaimlerChrysler, was cautious, calling the technology one of many the company was exploring. Among its current drawbacks is that the added batteries take up space and make the company's Sprinter van several hundred pounds heavier.
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This is part of a small program investigating these technologies," Mr. Cappa said. And Mr. Hermance of Toyota said that batteries today were not durable enough to handle the wide range of charging up and charging down that a plug-in hybrid would need, calling that the most damaging thing you can do to a battery.
Edward Furia, the chief executive of AFS Trinity Power, a privately held company in Bellevue, Wash., that develops mechanical batteries called flywheels, agreed with Mr. Hermance, but said that a secondary energy storage technology like a flywheel could solve the problem.
"If you've got a flywheel with your chemical battery, you can draw down the chemical battery, but when it's time to do a heavy lift, to accelerate or absorb energy, the flywheel is doing the acceleration or the absorption, not the chemical battery," said Mr. Furia, whose company is developing its own plug-in hybrid that it says will get several hundred miles per gallon.
While many environmentalists support the technology, some say in terms of emissions, electric cars would only be as good as the power plants that produce electricity.
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The concern on plug-in hybrids is that we not substitute addiction to one polluting fuel for addiction to a more polluting fuel," said Dan Becker, the head of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program. "
Coal is more polluting than gasoline, and nearly 60 percent of U.S. electricity is generated by burning coal."
Roger Duncan, a deputy general manager of Austin Energy, a utility owned by the City of Austin, Tex., said that "it's hard to say what impact it will have on the nation as a whole," but that in regions that use cleaner-than-average power sources, like Austin or California, it would provide a clear emissions benefit. Mr. Duncan even imagines a day when drivers could be paid to return energy to the grid during times of excessive demand.Plug-in hybrid prototypes have been around for several years, but the idea of modifying a Prius stemmed from the curiosity of some Prius owners in the United States, Mr. Kramer said. They were aroused by a mysterious unmarked button on their Prius and discovered that in Priuses sold in Europe and Japan, the button allows the car to drive for a mile in electric-only mode. Mr. Hermance said the feature was disabled in Priuses sold in the United States because of complications it would have created in emissions-testing rules.
Mr. Kramer said "a bunch of engineers reverse-engineered it in the United States and figured out how to hack it."
But they soon wanted to travel on batteries for more than a mile and began to collaborate through CalCars on adding batteries to the Prius that would allow for longer pure electric travel. With the help of dozens of volunteer engineers collaborating online, the group retrofitted a Prius in Mr. Gremban's garage to travel about 10 miles on nothing but battery power.
Mr. Duncan said the plug-in hybrid was "
very realistic, because it's not that big a leap in technology."
"
Look what Felix has done with Prius off the street," he added. "
This isn't rocket science."
