San Francisco Gets Three Hymotion Plug-In Prius Hybrids
20 February 2008
San Francisco, California Mayor Gavin Newsom is scheduled tomorrow to unveil three recently converted plug-in hybrid Prius vehicles, for use by the City and County of San Francisco. The PHEVs have been converted by Green Gears, using the installation kits developed by Hymotion, a subsidiary of A123Systems.
The event will be held at Pat’s Garage in San Francisco. Pat Cadam, owner of Pat’s Garage, also runs Green Gears, which has performed PHEV installations for major corporations and institutions such as Google and Pacific Gas and Electric, as well as several city and county agencies in San Francisco, Vermont, Minnesota, Seattle and San Diego.
—Jack Rosebro
Nice work Pat and Gavin. Watching the performance of these Hymotion BREMs should provide some indication of the progress being made by the A123 pack for the GM Volt and Saturn VUE PHEVs. Though at a lower energy density than Volt/VUE requires, the Hymotion/A123 nanophosphate lithium chemistry appears to be the same as the prototype packs delivered to GM testing facilities late January 2008.
According to Hymotion their conversions are averaging an equivalent of 100MPG (calc method not detailed) and boost all-electric range up to 7 times.
Posted by: gr | 21 February 2008 at 09:22 AM
Sounds great, but Green Gears charged $20,000 per car to install the kit, which I believe sells for $5,000. Quite a mark-up; no wonder es ef can't balance its budget. Newsome puts on a good show but is a very flaky administrator.
Also, Toyota reportedly is delaying creating a factory plug-in hybrid using lithium-ion batteries out of concern they can catch fire and that they won't last the lifetime of the car - a quality standard Toyota set for the Ni-NM batteries for its stock Priuses. (We own two.) Any word on Green Gears or Hymotion's position on those issues? Does either company provide a warranty?
Posted by: Dale Mead | 22 February 2008 at 10:06 PM
Sounds great, but Green Gears charged $20,000 per car to install the kit, which I believe sells for $5,000. Quite a mark-up; no wonder es ef can't balance its budget. Newsome puts on a good show but is a very flaky administrator.
Also, Toyota reportedly is delaying creating a factory plug-in hybrid using lithium-ion batteries out of concern they can catch fire and that they won't last the lifetime of the car - a quality standard Toyota set for the Ni-NM batteries for its stock Priuses. (We own two.) Any word on Green Gears or Hymotion's position on those issues? Does either company provide a warranty?
Posted by: Dale Mead | 22 February 2008 at 10:07 PM