Enermotion Turns Your Prius Into a Solar Powered Plug-in Hybrid
Jack MacDonnell takes your Prius and covers the roof with photovoltaics and adds a back-up battery supply "which provides additional electric charge to the vehicle’s electric motor when the factory battery pack's State of Charge (SOC) drops below a pre-determined charge rate. This supplemental battery pack thereby extends the driving range of the vehicle while the factory battery pack recharges itself on-board."
It extends it a lot- to the equivalent of a hundred miles per gallon, and reducing ‘well to wheel’ CO2 emissions up to 50%.
it isn't just for Priuses, either; they will modify any hybrid car or truck.
When he is not doing conversions, Jack is working on his Automotive X prize entry, the XP100. "Without giving away our strategy, our engineering plan is to optmize some existing technology while integrating a number of innovations we are developing to achieve the objectives of the competition."
I am not a gearhead and Mike would have asked better questions, (and I did not know about the X prize entry or would have asked about it) but I muddle through an interview of Jack MaDonnell, CEO of EnerMotion. Found at the Green Living Show.
More on the Automotive X Prize in TreeHugger:The Next X-Prize: Rethinking the Automobile
More on Plug in Hybrids:Plug-in Hybrid Cars: Chart of CO2 Emissions Ranked by Power SourceCompacts and Hybrid Cars Becoming More Popular in the USASmartlets: The 'Gas Station' of the Future Might Be No Bigger Than a ParkmeterF3DM: The Second, Smaller, Plug-in Hybrid by China's BYDChicago Company Offers Hybrid ConversionsToyota Unveils Plug-in Prius
