A plug for the plug-in hybrid.Considering the ghastly price of gas, people are now seriously assessing the cost of driving, helping to make the Toyota Prius the first commercially successful hybrid. Hybrids have introduced electricity into transportation in a way that exclusively electric cars have been unable to do. That’s the real breakthrough. The drawback is, although the hybrid uses an electric motor and battery pack, it still burns gas. But it consumes 30 percent less energy and produces 30 percent less carbon than non-hybrids of the same size. What’s the next step?
According to a NOVA special called “Car of the Future,” a hybrid is in the works at UC Davis that can charge its batteries through a wall socket, connecting the car to the electric grid supplied by power plants, transitioning us off of oil and onto electricity, so long as that electricity is not produced by burning oil.
According to the documentary, skeptics say that all plug-ins will do is shift the pollution source from the tailpipe to the smokestack, but studies show that cars powered by electricity from a mix of power plants could reduce greenhouse emissions by about 40 percent, with further reductions possible as electric power gets cleaner.
Electricity can be generated in a lot of different forms, including direct local sources. It may even be possible in the future to serve as your own fuel station, recharging your car battery from solar cells on your rooftop, or quite possibly, a wind turbine in your back yard. Today’s wind and sunshine would give you tomorrow’s mileage, stored in the batteries for your convenience. The bottom line is, it would be renewable energy from sun and wind.
Other factors are cost, supply and demand. It costs four times more to run a car on gasoline that it would from a power grid. The NOVA special explained that the existing electric utility system could handle tens of millions of plug-in hybrid vehicles if they would be recharged during off-peak times.
The hybrid is a key technology in the step forward into the future. The sooner the plug-ins get into the hands of the public, the sooner we could transition ourselves off of oil. If our future electric grid uses alternative, sustainable fuels, plug-in hybrids may become Maui’s car of the future.
There is a wide range of innovative technologies that may make our future vehicles more efficient and less reliant on oil. But as David Greene of the National Transportation Research Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory explained, “Technology alone will not solve the looming crisis we face with our petroleum-powered fleet.” We also need smart government policies and action.
We are fortunate to have visionary leadership in Hawai‘i (see front page stories). Hopefully, our national elections will also produce leadership that supports the environment. We need smart government policies to spark change in our transportation system.
Maybe if we feel more panic at the polls, we can mitigate future panic at the pump.