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PAGE 12A -- THE COMMERCE (GA) NEWS, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2007
The Car Of The Future?
Engineer's Plug-In Hybrid Car Gets 100 Miles Per Gallon
Imagine driving a car that
gets 100 miles to the gallon.
Allen Shedd, a commer
cial/industrial engineer with
Jackson EMC, doesn’t have to.
He drives one every day.
Shedd presented a program
for the Commerce Kiwanis
Club last Thursday about his
“plug-in hybrid vehicle,” and
the implications for the future
with gas prices constantly on
the rise .
Two years ago, Shedd pre
sented a similar program
regarding his Toyota Prius, the
commercially available hybrid
that was getting about 45 miles
to the gallon.
Since then, as a participant
in the Cooperative Research
Network, Shedd drove the
Prius to California where
engineers removed the facto
ry battery pack and installed
a custom battery pack, com
puter monitoring system and
a plug-in recharging unit.
For starters, the vehicle can
run 40 miles on battery power
alone. Recharging uses about
40 cents worth of electricity,
Shedd told the Kiwanis Club.
“The idea is to bring these
things to the market,” he said,
predicting that the first fac
tory-built models could come
out in 2010.
The test vehicle, one of about
60 in the country, did not
come about inexpensively.
“The battery cost more than
the car,” Shedd noted, but he
also pointed out that mass
production of the battery
would be expected to bring the
cost down from the $30,000
spent on his battery to $4,000
to $6,000. The new battery
added about 170 pounds to
the weight of the car — about
the weight of a passenger. It’s
Allen Shedd, third from left, explains how his experimental
Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid works to Commerce Kiwanis Club
members Robert House, Dr. Paul Sergent, Steve McKown and
Erskine Rice.
located in the trunk, displac
ing the spare tire.
A computer monitor, like
those in most hybrids, pro
vides data on performance.
Shedd said he’s averaged 161
miles per gallon for the past
60 miles.
“The goal is to use it nor
mally, collect the data and
monitor how much energy we
put into it,” he said.
The vehicle, which used to
average 45-50 miles per gal
lon, will get 75-90 mpg on his
26-mile commute, but about
120 mpg on a drive to and
from Athens.
“On shorter trips, local com
muting, you get really good
mileage,” he advised, because
most of the power comes from
electricity.
At night, he runs an exten
sion cord from a regular 120-
volt wall socket to his car.
Speaking of his three-day
drive home from California,
Shedd advised that “it’s eas
ier to recharge your car at a
cheap motel than at an expen
sive motel” because at the
former one can usually run
an extension cord from the
motel room to the vehicle. A
full charge takes about four
hours.
Companies are already
beginning to make “kits” to
convert hybrid cars into plug
in hybrids and others are aim
ing to have factory-built plug
in hybrids on the showroom
floors by 2010.
Shedd, who drove the Prius
60,000 miles before the con
version and 26,000 since, said
he’s seen no change in perfor
mance since the larger battery
pack was added.
Asked about the life of the
battery pack, Shedd said that
the original Prius battery had
an eight-year unlimited-mile
age warranty and speculated
that when such cars reach
dealers, they’ll have warran
ties at least that good.
While public acceptance of
the vehicles will likely take
years, the implications for the
U.S. consumption of foreign
oil are enormous. According
to figures Shedd presented,
if cars could run 20 miles per
day on battery power alone,
U.S . oil consumption would
fall by 60 percent while reduc
ing greenhouse gas emissions
and drastically reducing U.S .
dependence upon imported
foreign oil.
Paying eight cents per kilo
watt hour to charge the Prius’
battery equates to buying gas
oline at 75 cents per gallon,
he said .
That’s a pretty fair savings
with regular unleaded gasoline
currently selling at more than
$3 per gallon. While Shedd
acknowledged that there is
no way to recover through
fuel savings the cost of the
conversion of his car, rising
gasoline prices all but assure
that future plug-in hybrids will
be cost-effective.
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