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Toyota Hybrid Breakthrough! One-mile EV Range Highlander Hybrid!

Plugs and Cars

AutoBlogGreen has the details on the '08 Highlander, and it includes an EV mode! Now you will be able to move the car across the street for street cleaning days without using gasoline. The 24 NiMH batteries in my Toyota RAV4 EV take the car 120 miles without gasoline. That's why every hybrid on the road uses NiMH.

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Toyota broadly outlines next-generation Prius; developing wireless inductive charging for the plug-in model; bullish on hydrogen

Green Car Congress

The performance of this new generation of powertrains will reflect significant advances in battery, electric motor and gasoline engine technologies. The next Prius will also feature electric motors that will be smaller in size. —Satoshi Ogiso. The next Prius will feature improved batteries with higher energy density.

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Soot and Spin: Two Plug-in Paradoxes

Plugs and Cars

Required reading: Bill Moore's EVWorld review and Martin Zimmerman's LA Times piece about their test drives of the Toyota Plug-in Prius and the hydrogen fuel cell Highlander FCHV. Third party converters have spent time and resources tweaking their plug-in hybrids to meet ARB testing written with gasoline-only hybrids in mind.

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Toyota Concerned About Market Viability of Plug-ins, Sees Clear Path to Commercialization of Fuel Cell Technology in 2015

Green Car Congress

The current state of market readiness of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles presents serious challenges, particularly in mass production, given issues including range; cost; a charging time still longer than a conventional gasoline refueling; a broad variation in battery pack life, and the lack of infrastructure. Earlier post.).

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CalCars and PHEVs Frequently Asked Questions

Tony Karrer Delicious EVdriven

We also think that with more people realizing that global warming is our greatest challenge, and that evolving the transportation sector to zero-carbon via cellulosic ethanol plug-in hybrids plus electricity from renewable sources may be our best strategy, the discussions about payback are a narrow answer to big questions.

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How Carmakers Are Responding to the Plug-In Hybrid Opportunity

Tony Karrer Delicious EVdriven

GM has announced plans for public sales in 2010, and almost every carmaker now says it will sell PHEVs or highway-speed battery electric vehicles (BEVs) sometime after 2010. Shifted earlier focus to all-electric Focus in 2011 with Magna. Company says its focusing on gasoline and hydrogen. todays answer is "Yes -- but not yet."

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