…and I don’t mean the golf cart variety. Popular Mechanics is announcing that the Toyota Prius is coming out with a plug in electric version. Unfortunately this won’t be available for at least 2 years, but a company called Hymotion is selling after market plug in converters for the hybrid that converts it into an electric, clean vehicle. They claim that you can drive a 30-40 mile range on electric, and once the power runs out, the gas power kicks in. All this for the cool add on price of $9,995 (including installation). This may sound like an initial ‘ouch’ but the gas savings outweigh the cost pretty quickly, not to mention the environmental benefits! As an example I used the calculator on their site and assumed the following variables:

• an even 50/50 split between city driving and highway driving
• a 15 mile average daily 1 way commute
• ability to plug in at work
• 15000 miles driven in a year

It yielded the following results:

• a whopping 105 miles per gallon!
• only 12 yearly trips to the gas station
• and only 2771 pounds of carbon produced yearly (as opposed to 12, 125 for the typical gas powered vehicle and 6258 for the standard Prius).

This sounds so promising! I’d love to say I own a Prius, because I would seriously consider this modification, but sadly with 3 kids and all their gear, the Prius wouldn’t accomodate all of us. Here’s to hoping for a plug in mini van in the near future!