Top Ten PHEV conversion and information sites.

Earlier on this week I ran an article detailing ten top DIY conversion links. I decided that perhaps it’d be nice to detail ten top PHEV sites for anyone interested in plugging their hybrid in. Unlike the EV conversion scene many plug in hybrid conversions are commercially done, partly due to the expense of battery packs and the demographic of the owners wanting conversions. However, it’s possible to convert a vehicle (existing hybrid or a regular engined car) to a plug in hybrid yourself. You just have to know where to look for help and ideas. Hopefully this list will help.

It is possible to convert a regular gas-powered car to a plug in hybrid too – so don’t think this list is exclusively for those Prius owners. While plug in hybrids aren’t anything new (the first one was back in the early 1900s) we’re certainly at a point where plug in hybrids are starting to enjoy a bit of a golden age. At least, I think that’s where we’re heading. I don’t think we can get to full electrics without at least a passing time of plug in hybrid popularity. I hope that in a few years’ time my list will need redoing as more and more conversion and PHEV options become available.

If I can convert my hybrid to a plug in then so can you!
Prius PHEV battery number 2!

After the jump are my top ten sites for PHEV DIY converters to look at. Most of them are Prius-based, but by no means are they all so. There’s some other plug in hybrids too. Some of the sites won’t give you much information and others may need a few revisits. I hope you enjoy them all.

Continue reading “Top Ten PHEV conversion and information sites.”…

It’s nice to have the support, but why not convert too?

Today’s post has been rattling around in my head for the past week or so after a couple of comments to previous posts I’d made really got me thinking along with some really intense discussions with various EVers this week. Big thanks to Joe Lado, my good friend Pyoor Kate and Andrew Bissell for getting me thinking. What about? Well, about the future of plug-ins in the UK.

See, it’s long been my thought that EV conversions have to play a part in the future of plug in vehicles. How else are we going to get the 33 million or more vehicles on the roads of the UK switched to greener fuels? Scrapping them all isn’t an option. At £2,000 per pop, (in a scheme similar to those held in Germany and Ireland) I simply don’t see the money being there. Someone would have to fund it. As Pyoor Kate put it when I chatted to her earlier today, £2,000 to force coerce people into scrapping working vehicles to switch to newer vehicles may be a great idea on the face of it, but what if those vehicles don’t need replacing. What if they’re mechanically pretty sound?

Not all old cars should end up like this. They could become plug ins!!!
Not all old cars should end up like this. They could become EVs!

Photo by Ekai

Details of a better deal for encouraging EV and PHEV takeup after the jump

Continue reading “It’s nice to have the support, but why not convert too?”…