Volkswagen to Produce Plug-In Hybrid Electric Cars in 2010
Hot on the heels of the announcement that Mercedes will produce electric cars, comes the news that fellow German manufacturer Volkswagen plans to produce a test fleet of plug-in hybrid electric cars by 2010.
A few months ago, to much excitement from the automotive press, the company unveiled a diesel-electric Golf but, according to VW chief Martin Winterkorn, “the future belongs to electric cars.” To help in mapping out the road to this electric future, the company have unveiled a plug-in hybrid powertrain, called the Twin-Drive, which will make its first appearance in a Golf kitted out with a 122-horsepower diesel engine, twinned with an 82-horsepower electric motor.
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A key difference between the VW approach and typical hybrids is that instead of the battery providing supplemental power to the combustion engine, the Twin-Drive will work the other way around. According to Winterkorn, “here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor.”
The car will use lithium-ion batteries and have a range of 31 miles on purely electric power. Over the last few months, Volkswagen has invested heavily in li-ion battery technology. In addition to teaming up with Sanyo in a $769 million dollar development project, the company has also formed the Lithium-Ion Battery 2015 Alliance (LIB2015) with Bosch, BASF, Evonik and others, backed up by a €60 million investment from the German government.
Volkwagen says it will have a test-fleet of twenty Twin-Drive Golf’s on the road in 2010, but there is still no news on plans to ramp-up commercial production. Given the level of investment being ploughed into the technology, I have a hunch that such an announcement won’t be too long in coming.
Posts Related to Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles:
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- VW Debuts Tiguan HyMotion Fuel-Cell Vehicle and 2009 Clean Diesel Jetta
- Snapshot of Battery Technology for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Cars
- Chevy Volt’s Lithium-Ion Batteries Road Tested By Month’s End
- Plug-In Hybrids Could Require 160 New Power Plants by 2030 (Or None At All)
- Google to Spend $10 Million on Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Project
Image credits - Volkswagen
This is a very nice step by why is it going to take another 18 months for something like this to be available? People are already converting their cars to be electric and are getting more than 31 miles on a charge. The price tag is also much lower than what one of these would cost. VW already has a production vehicle that will get about 78mpg using nothing other than a diesel engine. Google VW 3L. It is nice that the automakers are starting to get on board with alternative fuels but we should demand faster innovation and faster time to market. The technologies already exist.
I am converting my car to be 100% electric. You can view the project at http://www.zerogasoline.com
I’m afraid that all these super-mileage cars will be brought to market just in time for the current computer age children to be indifferent to them, preferring bus rapid transit and flying over the very expensive option of personal car ownership. Owning your own car may be just as much a part of the 1930’s model life as owning your own home with a garden and a white picket fence. My children strive for city life, condos, buses, rent cars or small trucks when they need them, travel by bus, train, commuter train and jet airplane. The have skipped car ownership altogether! Snooty little farts order everything including food, online and live by blackberry!
Barack Obama, if elected U.S. president, will promote hybrid-electric automobiles.
[...] recommendation: Get yourself a plug-in hybrid as soon as they become available and then put solar panels on your roof through a community solar [...]