Thursday, August 18, 2005

Toyota Prius Hybrid car gives 250 mpg

Toyota Prius Hybrid car gives 250 mpg. Surprised! Yes, it is true, thanks to the efforts of green-minded enthusiasts at California. These people have turned popular hybrid cars into plug in cars, which could be recharged using off peak electricity from the mains. Lets see how..

Hybrid cars such as Prius, Escape and Honda Civic have petrol and battery power source which is computer integrated. With these configurations, hybrid cars are able to have a fuel mileage of 60-70 mpg as compared to 20-40 in conventional cars.

You could call them inventors or Hackers but these people are reprogramming computer and getting extra batteries that in turn guzzles less fuel and gives higher electric kick to the cars. One such person in San Francisco customized his hybrid car by fitting 18 electric bicycle batteries to store extra power. These batteries get charged from solar panels or domestic sockets at night. He successfully achieved 96 mpg for his hybrid car. Now that is quiet impressive.

The electronic tweaks he executed trick the hybrid arrangement into thinking that the battery is completely charged so it uses battery power at all speeds, rather than just through deceleration.

One other innovator at Californian outfit, Energy CS, in Monrovia has converted 2 Prius models to get nearly 276 mpg with the help of extra lithium ion batteries. Now lets see how these hybrid car manufacturers respond to this.