> Go to YouTube and type in "171mpg." Doing this will bring up a
> hobbyist/engineer's log outlining the mileage he gets in his PHEV-
> converted Prius. "Dave" has a fair number of these logs recording his 
> experiences on YouTube, but he's not unique, and Toyota has been paying 
> close attention to
> these people. The 2009 Toyota is rumored to be based on their designs: a
> PHEV, perhaps advertising 100+ mpg when it appears.

I find that MPG is the wrong measurement though. A completely electric car
has an infinite MPG. A better measure would be cost/distance. Because
electricity is cheaper to produce than gas, the Plug-In is about a quarter
to a third the cost of gas/petrol over the same distance.

> Even more than that, Toyota just announced today that it will also be
> offering the next logical step: a solar-powered PHEV version of the Prius:
...
> In a normal commute situation, where the car sits in a parking lot all
> a trickle charge integrated over a day's charging likely means the commute
> home could be free (no gasoline, no external electricity), depending on
> size of the solar array placed on the car's upper surfaces.

In the articles I have found relating to this story, the solar panels are
not advertised for mileage but are meant to add to other features like air
conditioning, small fans, etc. That's not to say that it couldn't provide a
small boost to the range of a trip but that wasn't the impression I got from
the articles. Here's one example:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/07/BUFO11L7FO.DTL
...
Toyota Motor Corp. plans to stick solar panels on some models of its popular
Prius hybrid car, according to news reports Monday. The panels, made by
Kyocera, would help power the air conditioner.

Details are sketchy. The Nikkei financial newspaper of Japan and the Reuters
international news service reported the story, but both relied on
unidentified sources. Toyota refused to confirm or deny the reports, saying
the company doesn't talk about future product plans.

And some of the details seem implausible. Nikkei wrote that the panels would
produce 2 to 5 kilowatts of electricity, roughly the same as a rooftop solar
array on a typical house.

But some alternative energy experts find the idea intriguing. Today's solar
panels can't provide nearly enough power to run a passenger car by
themselves, and they could significantly inflate a car's cost. But they
could also make a car more efficient.

"It's not going to eliminate gasoline consumption in a Prius, and it
wouldn't be on my list of energy improvements I'd make to a car," said Mark
Duvall, program manager for electric transportation studies at the Electric
Power Research Institute. "But that doesn't mean it can't make a small but
significant improvement in the amount of gasoline you'd use."
...


Mark W.

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