A Plug-In Hybrid Minus the Plug
One of the contradictions of plug-in hybrid vehicles is that the place they are most useful — the city — is the place you'll likely have to park somewhere where you won’t have access to an electrical outlet.
Yet every once in a while an idea comes along that seems so perfect and self-evident, you almost can't believe someone hasn't thought of it already. That's the way we feel about MIRA's plugless plug-in hybrid vehicle system, H4V.
For city drivers with no garage and no access to a socket when they park their car at night, this is perfect. It works like so: The vehicle has three removable lithium ion phosphate battery packs in the trunk that you can pull out and take with you. Once charged, you simply slip them back in and you're good to go. MIRA estimates the cost of retrofitting a vehicle at about $3,950.
This presents the possibility that the true future of electric vehicles involves exchangeable batteries. Imagine pulling into a gas station and exchanging your vehicle's spent battery for a new one. As our senior editor David Thomas puts it, it’s "kind of like a propane exchange at Home Depot."
No Plug? No Problem. MIRA Debuts the "Plugless Plug-In Hybrid" (AutoblogGreen)
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How much do those battery packs weigh? I'm curious to see how many people will be willing to carry heavy packs several blocks from their car parked on a city street to their home.
Better get on that little custom designed battery pack hand truck idea going. And find a manufacturer in China. Or lease that old gas station lot for a pit stop where young folks with strong backs swap out the battery for you while you yack on the cell phone. Maybe we'll even wash their windows. What a great idea!
This might work!
And no, I don't do the Propane gas cylinder swap. I wait for the fellow at the local 76 to fill it for me and save $2-3.
I was thinking while slowly filling up my lawn tractor yesterday that I used to fill my car for the cost of the 2.5 gals the tractor took. OK, it was the 70's but still...
Great!
Now the theives can easily steal our hybrid batteries too!
They will find it much harder to steal the car if you took the batteries with you.