EnerDel says it will come out with a lithium-ion battery for plug-in hybrids that will cost $1,500, a development that could go a long way to making these cars palatable in terms of price.
The Indianapolis-based company, which recently received a $6.5 million grant from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), hopes to deliver the battery to car manufacturers for their 2010 lineups, according to Charles Gassenheimer, vice chairman of the company. The 2010 model cars will start coming out in September 2009, he said.
By then, there will probably be 65 hybrid cars on the market, he estimated. Right now, there are 15, he said. No major manufacturers currently make plug-in hybrids. Plug-ins have larger batteries than conventional hybrids, can be charged through a socket and get better gas mileage. However, they cost a lot at the moment. Converting a hybrid to a plug-in costs about $15,000, money that even plug-in hybrid proponents admit is nearly impossible to make up for with better fuel economy.
"You're not going to spend thousands of dollars to save $600 to $700 at the pump a year,"
Gassenheimer said. "Until you make this a positive return on investment, you won't see these (plug-ins) at 50 to 80 percent penetration."
EnerDel will mostly aim at selling batteries to manufacturers to incorporate into cars coming off the line and not aftermarket modifiers.
How much cheaper will an EnerDel-energized plug-in hybrid be compared to a regular one? It's hard ... (Read more)
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