The California Cars Initiative for Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles

A Modified Prius Gets a Charge


Have you heard of Calcars? That is their short form for California Cars Initiative, which is headed up by Felix Kramer, an avid spokesman for plug-in hybrid technology. Founded in 2002, Felix enlisted the help of tech savvy Ron Gremban and commenced to solve the riddle of making automobiles plug-in capable.

They discovered that the Toyota Prius was the most suited vehicle for conversion. Basically, Ron hacked into the computer electronics of the Prius so that he could control the messages coming from the battery pack and also control when the engine turned on. Their idea was to "spoof" the car into thinking it had lots of battery juice and that it could run on battery power alone. Then the driver could plug in the car at night and repeat the drill the next day.

Initially, Ron used a lead acid battery pack, installing them in the spare tire wheel well. They were able to get the Prius to run on battery power alone at speeds less than 34 mph for about 15 miles. This gave the Prius amazing fuel economy numbers, especially when driving around town, numbers over 100 mpg. Later, they used Lithium ion batteries and obtained even greater range, up to 30 miles. Recently, it has been discovered that the Prius could be modified to allow speeds up to 52 mph solely using batteries.

Now, CalCar's is lobbying Congress to enact legislature giving consumers tax breaks for purchasing plug-in vehicles and even for converting existing vehicles. The Ford Escape hybrid can also be modified like the Prius. Many companies have now sprung up around the new industry and offer solutions for converting the Prius or Escape. All we need now is mass production to bring the costs down, which will happen soon, in my opinion.

The CalCar's webite: