The plug-in Prius tests that started yesterday in London were not without a bit of hoopla, and our friend Adam V. from Smartplanet was on hand to video a bit of the introduction. We, sadly, don't get to see the PHEV on the road - but I guess we've all seen Priuses driving by now and you can't really tell the PHEV version from the outside except for the stickers anyway - but Adam does get a few minutes of Q&A with Toyota's Colin Hensley and EDF Energy's Peter Hofman. Hofman says that even with today's coal-fired dirty electricity, driving a plug-in hybrid can reduce your CO₂ emissions by 40 percent compared to driving a standard, gas-powered vehicle. Hensley talks a little bit about the upcoming revamp of the test PHEV Prius that will feature li-ion batteries for increased power and range. Watch the video at Smartplanet. Thanks to Adam for the tip.



[Source: Smartplanet]

Now, this is tasty. Toyota and EDF Energy today kicked off a series of road trials of the much-desired plug-in Prius. And it's not just because of those fancy stickers that we want this car, either. EDF (also a participant in the ongoing smart ED tests) and Toyota will be testing the PHEV Prius for the next year or so and expect the data collected during the trial to "play a pivotal role in the development of Toyota's PHV technology." There's a big no kidding.

For these tests, Toyota built a smart meter into the Prius that can regulate charging and invoicing, something that - if standardized - will make plug-in vehicles a much easier sell to utilities. Toyota says that if you're driving no more than 25 kilometers (15.5 miles), then your gasoline use is cut by 60 percent. Not quite as sexy as the Chevy Volt's promises, but still worth it. Toyota and EDF started testing the PHEV Prius in France late last year. Read more after the jump.


[Source: EDF, Toyota]

The Congressional Tennessee Valley Authority Caucus is a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators and Representatives from the Tennessee Valley Authority area (Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia). Today, the Caucus will hold a field hearing on electric drive vehicles in Nashville, and Toyota will be showing off the plug-in Prius prototype there. We're familiar with the Toyota PHEV Prius PR routine (we took one for a drive late last year at EVS23), but we'd be much happier about these events if certain Toyota execs didn't spend so much time downplaying the plug-in hybrid.

In any case, Toyota will also have Camry and Highlander hybrid models on display at the Caucus hearing, as well as a regular Prius. More details after the break.

Toyota has announced it will offer a plug-in hybrid vehicle with lithium-ion batteries (most likely, for lease, not for sale) in Japan, the U.S. and Europe by 2010. This is the confirmation of the success of Toyota's PHEV Prius plan and tests in Japan and in UC Davis. Batteries will be supplied by the joint venture that Toyota set up with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which will begin producing lithium-ion batteries in 2009 and will move into full-scale production in 2010. While this sort of official confirmation is nice, Toyota isn't revealing everything: the company said are working in a new type of battery which could outperform lithium-ion, but didn't explain further). It seems that Toyota doesn't want to fall behind GM's Volt.

During the press conference announcing the PHEV Prius, Toyota confirmed its plans to produce the Camry Hybrid in Australia and Thailand and showed off its improvements in gas mileage for both gasoline and clean diesel models (sold under the DCAT label in Europe).

Update: Don't get too excited yet. We checked with Toyota spokesman Curt McCallister who confirmed that nothing has changed with Toyota's PHEV plans Since CEO Watanabe spoke at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The Panasonic EV plant will begin making lithium batteries late in 2009. However, 2010 will only see a few hundred plug-in Priuses available to government and commercial fleets for testing. The PHEVs would not be available in higher volumes to retail customers until 2011-12 at least.

[Source: AP]

The styrofoam hamburger container shape of the Toyota Prius elicits a lot of responses, good and bad. But when was the last time you saw one and thought, "wow"? Back when the hybrid was introduced, amazement might have been a common reaction, but we've seen the Prius in the U.S. for eight years already. What could possibly make us excited about the car now (well, aside from the high gas mileage). Toyota North America's head of product planning Mike O'Brien has been thinking about ways to bring the wow back to the Prius, and it all revolves around a plug. As US News talked to O'Brien and then tried to crack the truth from the rumors about the upcoming Prius refresh. Their guesses:

• An all-electric button to go a few miles on battery power alone. This is a pretty easy guess to make, as the EV button is already available on the Japanese Prius.
• Two-prong outlets. Power your laptop or DVD player right off the powerful hybrid battery? Could happen.
• Plug-in Prius. Um, yeah, this one we know about.
• Lastly, US News thinks that the new Prius could be used as an emergency generator. O'Brien told the magazine that, "There's enough power in a Prius battery to power a 1,200-square-foot house." This would be an option down the road - i.e., not in the Prius we'll be seeing in Detroit in January.

[Source: Rick Newman / US News via EV World]

EnerDel's lithium-titanate battery has been independently tested by the Center for Transportation Research of the
Illinois-based Argonne National Laboratory. For the tests, a stock Toyota Prius had its nickel metal hydride battery pack replaced with a new 1kWh lithium ion unit from EnerDel. No problems were reported, despite the fact that no additional cooling modifications were made to the vehicle or battery pack. Additionally, a test was run which was intended to predict what the battery pack would be capable of if the Prius were converted to a Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). Test results were promising, with the EnerDel-equipped Prius achieving 77.41 miles per gallon on the city test. Although these results are just an approximation of what a PHEV Prius could offer, they are still promising. Also of note is the fact that internal resistance of the pack was reduced by sixty-seven percent over the stock Prius pack.

According to the press release pasted after the break, EnerDel's pack could be half the size of the Prius' stock pack while still offering the same performance, meaning that a similar-sized pack as stock would offer twice the power potential. Thanks for the tip, Jan!

Luscious Garage is as green as a garage could be. As ABG reported back in September, this female-owned shop specializes in service for hybrids and was constructed with every possible attention to environmental details. It not only hosts the monthly meetings of the San Francisco Electric Vehicle Association, it has got to be the only garage that has art exhibits and cultural events.

Recently Luscious began converting Priuses into plug-in hybrids, a service for which there is already a waiting list. Now they also offer charging for electric cars, including Toyota RAV4 EVs which use the small paddle inductive charger original built to work with the EV1. While specializing in hybrids, they'd be happy to service your car. Think of it as a way to support green automotives while waiting for that plug-in car to come to market.

[Source: Luscious Garage]

There are very official few plug-in Priuses currently cruising the world's streets. One of them was part of the Ride and Drive at EVS23, and there is no way we could pass up the chance to drive one. The trouble was, by the time it was our turn, the extra NiMH battery pack that provides up to seven miles of all-electric driving was plumb tuckered out and the car was operating in standard hybrid mode. So, driving this prototype around the block felt just like driving a normal Prius. Hopefully we'll soon get to test out a fully-charged PHEV Prius, but at least the car's shiny prism/rainbow exterior made us feel special at EVS23.

We also cornered Jaycie Chitwood, Toyota's senior strategic planner, advanced technologies group, after a long day on the EVS23 showroom floor and got the scoop on what Toyota is hoping to learn from the three PHEV Prius test sites (Japan, France and campuses of the University of California system). Chitwood says that UC Berkeley will focus on getting these vehicles into customer's hands while UC Irvine will be focusing on the environmental benefits that a plug-in system brings to reducing emissions. Japan and France, with their reliance on nuclear power for electricity, certainly have a different public mood for plug-in vehicles than what exists in the U.S., she says. Go ahead and hit play to find out more.

You can also learn more about what's inside the plug-in Priuses here.

At the EVS23 show in Anaheim last week, I finally got a chance to talk to Kim Adelman, president of Plug-in Conversions (I missed him at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo). Adelman offers at-home (or at-work) conversions of your own Prius by adding Nilar battery packs. Plug-in Conversions offers three different battery options - either 2, 4 or 7 kWh. The small system costs around $8,000 and bumps up the mpge rating to around 50-60 with an all-electric range or around eight miles. The 4 kWh system costs $12,500 and gives 16 miles of EV range (although Adelman was able to squeeze 19+ miles from this pack recently). The large 7 kWh pack goes for $15,000 and will move your Prius for 24 miles on electrons and pushes your mpge to 100+.

Adelman is limited by some of the restrictions that Toyota built into the Prius, such as the 34 mph speed limit when running solely on battery power. Should Toyota come out with their own PHEV Prius (which, in current testing, goes 62 mph on batteries), Adelman said, they will give Plug-in Conversions an even more fun vehicle to work with.

The additional packs Adelman uses are Nilar nickel-metal hydride packs. NiMH batteries are the ignored child of the current battery boom - everyone is looking towards lithium technology - but Nilar's Kurt Jensen says their time is not over yet. Jensen was also at the booth and spoke with AutoblogGreen about the Nilar battery technology and some of the patent issues that automakers face when working with nickel-metal hydride batteries. He didn't get into great detail about the intellectual property issues that cover this technology, unfortunately. You can hear Adelman talk about the car here (8 min, 5 MB) and Jensen talk about the batteries here (10 min, 7 MB).

Kim Adelman's plug-in Prius was at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo back in October, but somehow stayed hidden from my camera and eyes. The good news is that EVWorld's Bill Moore spotted the car and talked to Adelman about the car and Adelman's new company, Plug-In Conversions, which will send people to your house to convert your Prius to a PHEV in a day while you're off enjoying a latte or a game of poker (or, OK, working).

Moore notes that Adelman has discovered a bit of a sweet spot with electric-only range: eight miles. While the big automakers are all shooting for the 25-40 mile range, Moore writes that Adelman says that with an 8-mile range (and the ability to plug the car in before returning home), "you can achieve the same fuel efficiency as a car with a larger, more costly battery pack." Customers can choose a more powerful battery pack, but for those important eight miles, Plug-In Conversions will hook you up for eight grand.

[Source: EVWorld, h/t once again to Domenick]

This Friday, Toyota will deliver two plug-in Priuses to UC Davis for testing purposes. We've known about Toyota's PHEV Prius plan for a while now (the official announcement came back in July), but one of our clever readers, Joseph, submitted a tip that explains that perhaps the plug-in Prius has been in the works for six months, maybe even a year, before the July public acknowledgment. I'll let him explain:

The PHEV Prius prototypes from Toyota were revealed on July 25, 2007. In the video shown, at 1:07, you will see a Toyota E-COM, which was an EV designed for car-sharing/city. Toyota made about ~50 of them or so. They had a few of the E-COMs hanging around until 2006, when they ended the E-COM program. Here are a few pics of the E-COM (1, 2)

So, if the E-COM program ended in 2006 and the PHEV Prius is in a video with it beside it on the road, that must mean that the Prius PHEV prototypes must've been at LEAST 6 months old when they were displayed on July.

I know that there was already speculation beforehand that Toyota was developing PHEV prototypes, but this confirms it more.

Here is the website saying when the car program ended.

I'm not sure that just because the E-COMs are in a video with a PHEV Prius proves anything. When Toyota ended the E-COM program, they didn't destroy the cars, did they? If they mothballed them, then Joseph is onto something. Whatever the case, I've asked Toyota if they'd like to comment on this. For me, though, the excitement is in the future of the plug-in Prius program more than in its history.

[Source: EV World, Toyota, tipster Joseph]

A few months ago Toyota unveiled their fleet of prototype plug-in Priuses in Japan and some members of the media got to sample it them before the recent Tokyo Motor Show. The New York Times was one of the outlets that got to drive the PHEV Prius and while Toyota is clearly interested in evaluating the concept they don't seem to be in any rush to bring it to market. Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe stated that when PHEVs do come to market they may leap-frog past lithium ion batteries to whatever the next technology is. Given the problems that Toyota's battery partner Panasonic is having with their lithium cobalt oxide battery chemistry, it doesn't seem like much of a surprise to hear this from Toyota. However, in the near term, there doesn't appear to be any other breakthrough battery technology beyond lithium. Unless Toyota has some secret they haven't told anyone about they might want to get cracking on finding a better lithium battery if they don't want to get left behind before they can jump ahead.

[Source: New York Times]

The Mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, R.T. Rybak, is currently on his third hybrid vehicle after having previously driven a standard Toyota Prius and a Ford Escape Hybrid. He's now back in a Prius, but this time it's a plug-in version. The plug-in Prius is a conversion done by A123 subsidiary HyMotion. It's claimed that they get up to 70 mpg compared to the old Crown Victoria that used to shuttle the mayor which got 10 mpg. Check out the video of the mayor with his car after the jump.

[Source: Minneapolitics.com, thanks to Bretton for the tip]

Yesterday, in Tokyo, Popular Mechanics was briefed on Toyota's plug-in hybrid plans. The upshot is that "their plug-in development program was under way and that it may not wait for lithium-ion battery technology to mature." That means that the first plug-in consumer Priuses will likely use nickel metal hydride batteries, just like the current crop of demo PHEV Priuses (currently being tested in Japan and France).

Over in Tokyo, Popular Mechanics took the plug-in Prius for a four-lap ride and discovered it has an all-electric range of about seven miles, a top all-electric speed of 62 mph (this we knew) and recharges in 3-4 hours from a 110-volt outlet. When the next-gen Prius bows in 2009, Popular Mechanics says, it "will almost certainly use a plug-in system. The car may launch as a normal hybrid and later, once the lithium ion battery technology is ready, switch to plug-in capability. Or, it may be a plug-in from the beginning using a large NiMh pack and switch to lithium ion later. We think the latter may be true because we've heard rumors that the vehicle architecture is being designed for both battery types." The confusion continues.

[Source: Popular Mechanics]