{"id":1551,"date":"2005-08-18T21:07:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-18T21:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2005\/08\/18\/the-promise-and-politics-of-plug-in-hybrids\/"},"modified":"2005-08-18T21:07:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-18T21:07:00","slug":"the-promise-and-politics-of-plug-in-hybrids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/the-promise-and-politics-of-plug-in-hybrids\/","title":{"rendered":"The Promise and Politics of Plug-In Hybrids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not the first to notice <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/news\/technology\/0,1282,68535,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5\">this short article from Wired<\/a> on plug-in hybrids, but I want to pass it along as it gives a nice overview of a technology that could serve as the next generation of cleaner personal transportation. A couple of interesting things about plug-ins and the buzz growing around them:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s a sort of grassroots movement on the rise to convert standard hybrids to plug-ins, and the big automakers are taking notice:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>Toyota officials who initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories,&#8221; said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. &#8220;Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>The extra electrical charge is generally only good for &#8220;the first few miles of driving, but according to engineer and plug-in enthusiast Ron Gremban, &#8220;The average for people&#8217;s usage of a car is somewhere around 30 to 40 miles per day. During that kind of driving, the plug-in hybrid can make a dramatic difference.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, security hawks like James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney are plugging plug-ins as an important element of weening the US from foreign oil:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>Gaffney, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, said Americans would embrace plug-ins if they understood arguments from him and others who say gasoline contributes to oil-rich Middle Eastern governments that support terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent on our destruction or helping those who are &#8230; the more we are enabling those who are trying to kill us,&#8221; Gaffney said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, this article doesn&#8217;t mention one of the other promising aspects of the plug-in hybrid: in time, they&#8217;ll be able to put power back into the electrical grid. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hybridcars.com\/plugin-hybrids.html\">HybridCars.com<\/a>,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Someday, the larger battery packs used in plug-in hybrids could juggle power back and forth from the car to your household current. If adopted on a widespread basis, a fleet of plug-in (a.k.a. &#8220;gridable&#8221; hybrids) could offer what are called &#8220;regulatory services&#8221; (keeping voltages steady, etc.) to a modernized electric power grid. It is estimated that what&#8217;s called &#8220;V2G&#8221; could benefit individual car owners by as much as two to three thousand dollars per year for the use of their energy storage capacity\u2014offsetting their purchase and operating costs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Technorati tags: <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/automobile\" rel=\"tag\">automobile<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/plug-in%20hybrid\" rel=\"tag\">plug-in hybrid<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/fuel+efficiency\" rel=\"tag\">fuel efficiency<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not the first to notice this short article from Wired on plug-in hybrids, but I want to pass it along as it gives a nice overview of a technology&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Promise and Politics of Plug-In Hybrids &#8226; 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