EVWorld newsletter has interesting article on the firm Energy CS, headed by Greg Hanssen and his partner Peter Nortman. They've taken a stock 2004 Toyota Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, removed the 1.3kWh NiMH battery pack, installed a 9kWh Valence U-Charge pack powered by the Austin, Texas company's Saphion lithium-ion battery chemistry. Mileage boosts to 120 for the first 50-60 miles See March 8th weekly addition at www.evworld.com
Here's the link to the actual article: http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=ar...cle&storyid=818. You have to pay for a yearly subscription of $29 to get to the whole article (which I did not do). Funny, it has been posted before, and I thought I had read they used sealed lead acid for now.
There are two groups working on making a plug-in Prius. Energy-CS went straight to lithium, but the Priusplus group are still using lead acid for their development mule, with plans to learn more before upgrading to NiMH and then lithium.
