Plug-in Prius Hybrid Stands Up to Curvy Vermont Roads, Tops 100 MPG

Road testing at Vermont’s Green Mountain College on a pair of souped-up plug-in Toyota Prius hybrids has found the cars returning better than 100 miles per gallon in daily commuting. At times, one car topped 140 MPG.

Steven Letendre (pictured above), economics professor and research scientist at GMC, monitored the travels of his colleague James Harding as he drove a plug-in Prius nine miles each way between the college’s campus in Poultney and his home in Middletown Springs during the fall semester. Letendre said he was “amazed” by Harding’s results.

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A current Prius can average about 50 MPG. Toyota has said it will bring a plug-in Prius to market in 2009.

Harding drives on Vermont Route 140, a two-lane highway with a speed limit of 50 miles per hour. He figures his electric bills went up 60 cents a day when he charged the car, which was converted to a plug-in by a company called Hymotion.

“I was very conscious of the internal display on the dashboard, which tells you when the engine goes from battery power to gas,” he said. “It tends to make you more conscious of the energy the vehicle is using, and instinctively you want to lighten up on the gas pedal as much as possible.”

The cars are owned by Central Vermont Public Service, the state’s largest electric utility. The utility has been promoting and studying the feasibility of plug-in cars in the Green Mountain State. Plug-in hybrid technology, such as the Chevy Volt, has been drawing a lot of attention. However some have raised concerns about what the extra load from charging cars could do to the country’s aging electrical grid.

Vermont’s grid could handle a fairly large number of plug-ins, say Letendre and Richard Watts, of the University of Vermont Transportation Center. They reported in 2007 that the Vermont grid could handle 50,000 plug-ins without any upgrades to the system. The number doubles if drivers recharge at night when grid demand is lower. Aftermarket plug-ins have grown in popularity, and many owners report mileage figures similar to those logged at GMC.

Photo supplied by Green Mountain College.

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