This is in part a roundup of old info, with the following news:
President again promotes PHEVs, DaimlerChrysler says they've now
built 40 Sprinter PHEVs; Argonne Labs says in 18 months they'll know
how far away batteries are, and Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight says,
"Obviously, the plug-in has captured the public's imagination." The
more stories run in Detroit media, of course, the better.

<http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060727/UPDATE/607270448>
President calls for more hybrid research
David Shepardson / The Detroit News
Thursday, July 27, 2006

WASHINGTON -- The United States is making good progress on plug-in
hybrid battery technology that would allow drivers to travel 40 miles
without using any gasoline, President Bush said today.

"We're working on battery technologies," Bush said in Washington at a
speech to the National Association of Manufacturers. "They say we're
pretty close to a breakthrough in a battery where you can drive the
first 40 miles on a battery, and your car doesn't look like a golf cart."

But don't get the checkbook out to buy that plug-in hybrid yet. The
big unknowns are cost and battery life.

Plug-in hybrids are gas-electric vehicles that recharge their
batteries with an extension cord and a normal wall outlet when
parked, and through a regenerative brake system while on the road.
Such a vehicle travels farther without gasoline because it has a
fully charged battery pack every morning.

Experts and auto manufacturers say getting those vehicles to the
driveway is likely a long way off -- and no vehicle on the market can
go nearly that far on battery power alone, despite 15 years of
government-funded battery research.

Toyota Motor Corp. which announced in June it was conducting
significant research into plug-in technology, said current hybrid
batteries can't be modified to function as plug-ins.

"The battery technology to achieve the goals (of a plug-in) is
several years away," Dave Hermance, Toyota's executive engineer for
advanced vehicle technology, said in May.

There has been some speculation that Toyota's 2009 Prius might be
made as a plug-in hybrid. Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight said the
company wasn't ready to make any announcements about that vehicle.

"Obviously, the plug-in has captured the public's imagination,"
Knight said. "Our engineers are optimistic that there's a normal
development curve and with advanced battery technology we will be
able to get there."

Some people have modified current hybrids into plug-ins and some
companies are selling conversion kits -- a move not endorsed by the
manufacturers. Converting a current hybrid to a plug-in puts
significant strain on a current Toyota Prius or Ford Escape's nickel
metal hydride batteries.

The federal government has been funding battery research since 1991
through the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium.

Michael Duoba, research engineer at the Department of Energy's
Argonne National Laboratory, said the first move is getting lithium
ion batteries to be cheaper. He noted that cell phones batteries have
moved from nickel metal to lithium ion.

"All of the major technologies exist. The question is it cheap enough
and will it last," Duoba said.

The other part will be training drivers. "We've been trained to plug
in our cell phones at night. We'll have to learn to plug in our cars too."

While acknowledging that current hybrids cannot go 40 miles on
electricity alone, Duoba said, that distance is a significant
percentage of most people's daily driving in the United States.

Duoba said in a year to 18 months, researchers will have a better
idea of how long it will take to develop a plug-in hybrid.

Last year, the Department of Energy announced it was spending $195
million on battery research over five years through the FreedomCar
and Fuel Partnership program, a joint venture with the Big 3 and
major oil companies.

Each year, the government spends more than $300 million on advanced
automotive research through the FreedomCar program.

DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group is the only domestic manufacturer
that has a test plug-in hybrid on the road.

The automaker has built about 40 plug-in Dodge Sprinter vans that can
go up to 20 miles on a battery, spokesman Nick Cappa said. One is
going to the New York Times so they can use it to deliver newspapers,
for example.

"The data is not there yet to say how far the vehicles will be able
to travel. You don't want to make promises you can't keep," Cappa
said. The project's technology "could evolve into a different type of
a hybrid, like a two-mode system. We have a lot of different
technologies we're looking at."

Ford Motor Co. also is making new moves in the plug-in hybrid arena.

In May, California Cars Initiative said it was in talks with Ford
about plug-ins. The intiative plans to "rapidly build a small
prototype/demonstration fleet of plug-in hybrids using Ford's Escape
Hybrid as a platform."

"First customers for the conversions of several dozen SUVs would be
cities, utilities, CEOs, entrepreneurs and celebrities."

Ford said it supported the group's efforts. At the company's annual
meeting, CEO Bill Ford said the company was "keenly looking at" plug-ins.

The inventor of the plug-in hybrid works for California Cars
Initiative. University of California-Davis professor Andrew Frank in
the early 1990s replaced gasoline engines with electric motors and
dubbed them "plug-in hybrids."

On Thursday Bush also touted a technology even farther out: hydrogen
fuel cells.

"One of these days our children will be driving cars powered by
hydrogen. In other words, in order to make sure this country is
competitive, we've got to be spending money on technology now, on
research and development now, to change our habits."

You can reach David Shepardson at (202) 662 - 8735 or dshepardson@....