Hybrid Car Review

Google announced their new project funding plug-in hybrid technology through their google.org project yesterday. They awarded over $1 million in grants and are looking to give away $10 million to "fund development, adoption, and commercialization of plug-ins, fully electric cars and related vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology."

Google.org is a for-profit charity seeded with $1 billion in initial capital. One of their maiden projects was to consult with hybrid technology companies and engineers in an effort to encourage the next generation of hybrid technoloyg, i.e. plug-in hybrids.

As part of their announcement/celebration, Google worked in conjunction with Pacific Gas and Electric to demonstrate the V2G technology possible with plug-in hybrid cars in the (see more on how V2G works).

There were six grants awarded on Monday of $100,000 to $200,000 each for a total of $1.05 million.

Grants: Google.org announced grants to the following organizations:

• Brookings Institution (http://www.brookings.edu): $200,000 to support a spring 2008 conference on federal policy to promote plug-ins;
• CalCars (http://www.calcars.org): $200,000 to support its work to educate the public about plug-ins;
• Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI) (http://www.epri.org ): $200,000 to support its plug-in research and development program;
• Plug-In America (www.pluginamerica.org): $100,000 to raise public awareness and advocate for plug-in transportation;
• Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) (http://www.RMI.org): $200,000 to enable RMI to launch the design of a practical plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, with additional support and collaboration by Alcoa, Johnson Controls, and the Turner Foundation;
• Dr. Willett Kempton, University of Delaware (http://www.ocean.udel.edu/cms/wkempton): $150,000 for megawatt scale vehicle-to-grid research and implementation planning.

Request for Proposals (RFPs) will be accepted through the google.org website this summer. They hope to "invest approximately $10 million in technologies and companies featuring plug-in hybrids, fully electric vehicles, vehicle-to-grid capabilities, batteries and other storage technologies, and the application of renewable energy and fuels to green vehicles."

Google is also looking demonstrate plug-in technology through a small fleet of converted hybrid cars using A123Systems/Hymotion. The experimental fleet has averaged 74 mpg, while the unconverted models have attained 41 mpg, so far.

Press release from Google
A more personal viewpoint of the demonstration/celebration from hybridcars.
A look at the difficulties plug-in hybrid cars face from USAToday
Google offers cash back to employees who purchase hybrid cars, as do Timberland and Bank of America.