Wake Up Detroit: The Time Has Come for Plug-in Hybrids

The following is an excerpt from Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal by Michael Brune (Sierra Club Books, 2008).

It's said there are two ways of teaching someone to swim: give them lessons, or just throw them in the water. Professor Andrew Frank, from California's Central Valley, learned about automobiles the harder way.

"My father bought a car for me in 1948 for about $25," Frank recalls. "It was a '29 Nash, but it didn't run. My dad said, 'Well, son, you're kinda interested in cars. Why don't you fix it? Make it run, and it's yours.'"

Frank chuckled. "I was up for the challenge. I not only fixed it but turned it into a hot rod. Chopped the engine out, replaced it, took the top off, the whole thing."

Having first taught himself, Frank has been teaching others for more than forty years, first electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, then mechanical engineering at the University of California at Davis. He's also been watching -- and trying to work with -- the auto industry. "I remember that when Toyota first introduced the Prius in 1997, American carmakers were ecstatic. They said that if Toyota really pushed their hybrid program, they'd go out of business!" Frank laughed.

In April 2007, Toyota overtook General Motors as the world's largest, and most profitable, automaker. The next month, the company announced it had sold its one millionth hybrid vehicle.

Frank is working to promote the next generation of efficient vehicles, plug-in hybrids. Hybrid engines like those used in the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic, or Ford Escape use a combination of gas and electric power. Plug-in hybrids, on the other hand, use electric power for a range of thirty to sixty miles, and rely on a combination of gas and electric power for longer trips. Moreover, a study from the U.S. Department of Energy showed that plug-in hybrids reduced greenhouse gas emissions in forty-nine states across the country -- even in states that were heavily dependent on coal to generate power. States that use large amounts of hydroelectric power, such as Washington and Idaho, produce emission savings with plug-in hybrids of more than 80 percent. Only North Dakota, which relies upon coal that is particularly low in energy output, didn't enjoy any savings from plug-ins.

Chelsea Sexton, a former GM employee featured in Who Killed the Electric Car? who promoted the electric EV1 until it was discontinued, says that plug-in hybrids are "the best of both worlds" between hybrids and electric cars. "Maybe your first forty miles of the day are all electric," Sexton says. "Monday through Friday you may never use gasoline. But if you want to drive to Vegas on the weekend, you have gasoline in the tank as a backup. We call plug-in hybrids: electric cars with a safety net!"

A typical hybrid gets twice the gas mileage of your average gas-powered car, and plug-ins get about twice the mileage of a typical hybrid. Since 78 percent of all commuters live within twenty miles of their employer, plug-in hybrids would produce zero emissions and use not a single drop of gasoline for most trips. Most of the plug-in hybrids on the road today exceed a hundred miles per gallon. On longer voyages, to go camping or to visit grandma for the weekend, a combination of gas and electric power gives plug-in hybrids a range of four to five hundred miles. After that, drivers can just pull into any gas station, fill up, and go. Frank estimates that a plug-in vehicle would cost about $4,000 to $6,000 more than a conventional car. "That's what some people pay for a sunroof, leather seats and a fancy navigation system," he says.

Frank has been advancing plug-in hybrid automotive technology for years. He built his first plug-in hybrid in 1971, as part of a Department of Transportation contest on the future of urban driving. In the mid-1990s Frank and his UC-Davis students designed a series of improved plug-in hybrid vehicles that achieved far better mileage than anything Detroit was putting on the road. Frank offered the technology to major automakers, but everyone passed.