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I have been driving a 100mpg Plug-in Hybrid for the past year. I use just 4kwh each day of Clean Domestic Wind Energy to offset the amount of Foreign Oil I have to buy. What you need to know that this article does not say is that Plug-in cars can be made to be any Size, Power, or Speed. They are good for air and they are coming even if I have to build them all myself. Sawyer Family, welcome to the club!

Puh-leeze, the wilre services do this all the time but I expect better from the IEEE.

Don;t call it a 100 MPG car when it's clearly not getting all those 100 miles from the gasoline. A plug-in hybrid gets much of its energy from the line, so you can't in any reasonable fashion say it gets 100 MPG.

Int he popluar press, I see this all the time. Lay People only remember a few percent of what they read. they get unrealistic expectations when the text, or worse, the headline reads 100 MPG. IT makes everything elso look ho hum when there's really no way to get 100 MPG for a normally used vehicle.

Puh-leeze, the wilre services do this all the time but I expect better from the IEEE.

Don;t call it a 100 MPG car when it's clearly not getting all those 100 miles from the gasoline. A plug-in hybrid gets much of its energy from the line, so you can't in any reasonable fashion say it gets 100 MPG.

Int he popluar press, I see this all the time. Lay People only remember a few percent of what they read. they get unrealistic expectations when the text, or worse, the headline reads 100 MPG. IT makes everything elso look ho hum when there's really no way to get 100 MPG for a normally used vehicle.

Excellent article - it has certainly cleared up a few of my earlier misconceptions.
I just have a query about one of the statements made in the article: "Sawyer says he is delighted. His only complaint is the relatively low speed at which the car automatically switches on its gas engine. He’d like to be able to cruise at 65 or 70 km/h without the engine kicking on."
I believe this is a very important point, and would like to know at what speed the car can cruise that the driver can be fairly certain that the car will keep in electric-only mode. The article mentions that the unmodified Prius is likely to switch to its gas engine between speeds of 25 to 65 km/h. Could a Plug-in Prius owner please elaborate a little on the cruise speed to keep their vehicle in electric-only mode?
Thanks

I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Yes, if the plug-in were actually running renewable energy it woudl be a good thing. But with the limited amount of renewable energy available, it just displaces renewable energy that could be avaialble for someone else to substitute for coal. Gasoline is also in limited supply, and the greatest energy savings come from burning the oil in high-efficiency vehicles and NOT burning oil in power plants, where you lose efficiency because of transmission loss and converter loss going into the car. Plus, your plug-in battery is an ecological disaster, and you have to lug that thing around costing you even more efficiency.

Let's work on getting our power plants converted to non-carbon sources before we start churning out plug-in cars!

Renewable energy combined with a plug-in hybrid is the answer to an earlier comment by David. Renewable Energy is certainly not "limited" as you put it - we have enough daily solar energy radiation to power around 15000 times the world's daily needs, and this is much easier to do if you start with household and vehicle energy usage. The article states that Sawyer is using around 3-4kWh per day to charge his plug-in hybrid car. This equates to only around 4 roof-top solar panels at 215W each (exact amount depends on local solar radiation levels). Of course, these panels also come at an additional capital cost, but they usually pay themselves off in the first 15 years of their 30-40 year lifetime. Just 4 grid-connected solar panels can add to the 10 or so needed to cover the remainder of your energy efficient home's electricity usage. Solar panel systems have dropped in price over the last 10 years, so they have now become afordable for many households. Waiting for "someone else" to solve the problem is never the best method, especially when we can each cover our own carbon footprint at home.

"the greatest energy savings come from burning the oil in high-efficiency vehicles"... please, where can I find one of these gasoline burning beauties? The efficiency of an internal combustion engine is around 35% not to mention the high-energy needs to refine that oil into gasoline, whereas electric motors routinely operate around 90%. Why are so many against electrifying vehicles? Look beyond the now and see that by having plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles now, in the future when electricity comes from cleaner sources (it is shifting in this direction) we already have uses for it. Oil will run out, what will you do with your ICE vehicle then? I will be happily humming along in my electric vehicle since you can make electricity from such a vast array of processes.