This front-wheel-drive configuration shows the main elements clearly, but DaimlerChrysler`s Sprinter will be a rear-driven truck. ALONG WITH THE CIVIC, the Inspireand Accord are Honda`s volume offerings in its three main markets: Japan, Europe, and the United States. Of course, you can stop and charge at any one of over 16,500 charging stations across the United States to amp up that figure. Best of all, dependence on petroleum comes down by a whopping 75 percent, on average, in the United States. The amount of electrical leakage varies with chemistry, and primary cells, such as lithium and alkaline, are among the best in retaining the energy. Ignoring out water heaters is so common that in fact, water heaters were one of the more recent household appliances recognized by Energy Star, the government program that certifies the energy-efficiency of appliances. Kinetic energy is converted to electrical energy. Matt Knapp is the founder and aero chief engineer of Zunum Aero, in Kirkland, Wash. Waleed Said is Zunum’s chief technology officer of power.



















For plug-in technology to succeed in passenger cars, one of the tricks will be finding a way to avoid befuddling a general public conditioned to do little more than turn a key, step on an accelerator, and buy copious quantities of gasoline. Parallel hybrids are more complicated; because both the electric motor and the combustion engine are connected to the drive shaft, either one or both can make the wheels turn. Only the electric motor can spin the wheels. KEN already does a modest but steady business converting small trucks, mostly Sprinter vans, to run on compressed or liquefied natural gas, electricity, or hybrid electric drive trains. So does the profusion of small hatchbacks--thrifty family cars never seen in North America. Across the street from the factory, in a small white conference room, Heinz Jorgensen gives me a status report and reviews the technical challenges. Precise, wry, sleepy-eyed, the 35-year-old Jorgensen is a study in contrasts: an automotive expert who walks to work and a son of lifelong Volkswagen employees who works for Daimler. Cocconi built one of the handful of plug-in hybrids now on the road; he did it by pulling the gas-powered guts out of a Volkswagen Jetta and replacing them with a 120-kW electric motor and 8.7 kWh`s worth of lead-acid batteries, which are charged by a four-cylinder, 1.4-liter internal combustion engine scavenged from a Volkswagen Lupo.



















Alan Cocconi, a San Dimas, Calif., electrical drive consultant whose company, AC Propulsion Inc., builds high-performance electric and hybrid cars. The sand dramatically increases the traction of the drive wheels. The Jetta is a joy to drive. Name the coupe seen in this image, please. If you decide to buy it, choose that one which can charge as many batteries at the same time as it is possible. At the same time, advances in NAND flash development have taken what`s good about the technology and made it even better. The vans destined for California will use Daimler`s four-cylinder, 2.3-liter M111 gasoline engine; a Kansas City bus will have a 2.1-liter diesel engine. Under the project, DaimlerChrysler is putting together three commercial vehicles--two light-duty utility trucks slated for California and a public transit van for Kansas City--all based on the company`s rugged Sprinter truck. But instead of the Sprinter`s standard 156-horsepower (115-KW) diesel engine, the utility vans are going to be outfitted with a hybrid gasoline-electric propulsion system and a beefy battery pack that can be recharged by plugging it in. And utility executives become visibly excited about the possibility of recharging millions of vehicle batteries at night, when their generating plants would otherwise languish.



















For example, that dashboard switch--the one that lets the driver put the vehicle into a pure-electric mode--could let the car operate in a crowded, downtown urban area where combustion-engine fumes and noise were unwelcome. The resulting trucks will be able to travel at least 32 km between rechargings in a pure-electric mode. No problem. You can travel in air-conditioned comfort, smug as a Prius Battery Replacement-driving film star in the knowledge that over the long haul, you are cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and smog by at least 50 percent, according to EPRI`s figures. That`s why a combustion engine vehicle needs a transmission--to let the engine spin fast enough, even at low vehicle speeds, so that it can generate enough torque to move the car. A series hybrid must have an electric motor that can supply, all by itself, enough rotational force, or torque, to accelerate the car briskly. If you had a plug-in hybrid with a battery big enough to cover your daily commute, you would have, in effect, a pure-electric vehicle five days a week, but one that could burn gasoline whenever you wanted to go on a ski trip, visit your cousin, or drop off the kids at summer camp.