CARazed

Volkswagen has announced it is developing a plug-in hybrid and will be road testing 20 cars by 2010. No word yet on if it will go into production but it seems like this project has a lot of momentum. Sanyo has the contract to provide the batteries, the German government is chipping in big money, and several other big automakers are contributing too.

The car will be propelled primarily by an 82 HP electric motor. The diesel (or gasoline if they choose to offer that as an option) generates the electricity for the electric motor when the batteries run low after about 3o miles of all-electric driving. It will also feature technologies like ‘start and stop’ which powers off the fossil fuel motor instead of idling.

At night the owner plugs the car into the wall to charge the batteries, saving money because the cost of electricity is significantly lower than the cost of fossil fuel. Plug-in hybrids would also have a much lower impact on the environment even with half our electricity coming from burning coal.

This is the technology to watch. Plug-In Hybrids will be the best transition technology until all-electric cars become common in 20 to 30 years. Plug-In Hybrids will fill the gap by leveraging the existing fossil fuel and power grid infrastructures. They will be much less expensive to own and produce fewer emissions.

If you’re in the market for a new car, buy used until 2010. Vote with your wallet and encourage car makers to innovate in these new directions. You see by lowering our demand for new cars that run on fossil fuel alone we encourage corporate decision makers to do the right thing and build better cars. The corporate bosses will make the right business decision if we move our demand to cars that more efficient, affordable to own, lower our dependency on foreign oil, help make our power grid more efficient, and keep the environment cleaner.

In the mean time keep your eyes on these new technologies and watch more auto makers jumping in this arena. Photo credit Volkswagen.