PLUG-IN HYBRIDS</span> Making green cars greener costs a bundle With $24,000 add-on, plug-in Toyota Prius is mostly for rich Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, July 21, 2007 <span style="font-family:Georgia">Want to be the first on your block with a $50,000 Toyota Prius? Head to Hybrids Plus in Boulder, Colo., and leave your Prius with their technicians. Go skiing or something, come back in three or four days with a check for $24,000 and you will have one of the nation's very few plug-in hybrids that should easily get 100 miles per gallon. A plug-in is an ordinary hybrid with an electric motor and gasoline engine that has been modified -- usually by upgrading its battery pack or adding more batteries -- so it can go a lot farther on electric power than it normally does. On Thursday, a study funded by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a power-industry group lined up behind advocates in dubbing plug-ins the car of the future, albeit the distant future.
Those are toys for the rich for now... :lol: No thanks for now. When any major automaker say it is ready and protect their products with 10 yr warranty, I will buy one.
