Chicago, Illinois’ Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies, Inc. has created the world’s first Ford F-150 plug-in hybrid. HEVT took the wraps off the eco truck earlier this week in San Jose at the Plug-In 2008 Conference and Exposition.
Using a scaled down version of HEVT’s hybrid drivetrain for transit buses, the hybrid system boosts the F-150’s average fuel economy from about 16 mpg to a very impressive 41 mpg.
Perhaps even more intriguing is that the system is intended to be retrofitted to existing vehicles, making it possible for virtually any vehicle to be transformed into a hybrid. “One way to reduce fossil fuel use is to find ways to plug in some of the hundreds of millions of internal combustion engines already on the world’s roads,” said CalCars founder Felix Kramer. “The pioneering PHEV designs for trucks and buses from Dr. Ali Emadi [HEVT’s founder and president] and his team at HEVT are especially promising.”
HVET plans on launching a pilot fleet of the F-150s in the near future, but no word on how long until its technology will be available to the public. We suspect price is the biggest hurdle, especially since HVET says it is working on “pushing conversion costs down and lowering lifetime cost of ownership for converted vehicles.”
07/25, 10:18 AM
posted by:
RaineMan
No word on how many thousands of dollars that conversion cost either.
07/25, 10:19 AM
posted by:
xyunya
How enlightening!
07/25, 10:22 AM
posted by:
shaver
Tax credits and fleets will be the keys to this having any success?
07/25, 10:42 AM
posted by:
RaineMan
This will never have any success… it’s a novelty. It probably cost $5000 minimum to convert one of those things. Even at $4/gal that’s a lot of gas.
07/25, 11:09 AM
posted by:
beatusmongous
$5,000? More like $20,000 or more. Their PT Cruiser EV is $55,000, which is more than $30,000 over a normal PT Cruiser. I’m sure their hybrid conversion isn’t as costly as a total EV conversion is, but I doubt $5,000 is going to cut it.
One thing I will say about this company, though, is that they can do EVs and PHEVs from just about anything.
07/25, 11:14 AM
posted by:
xyunya
Conversion is one thing, tested and ready for mass production (or limited production) vehicle is totally different story. How many municipalities will shell cash for NHTSA certification of this? And if not municipalities who will? it is a study at best, and I doubt that Ford has actual coin to go any further.
07/25, 11:23 AM
posted by:
crackerhemi
How come this company is beating the R&D at ford?
07/25, 11:47 AM
posted by:
JoshyLofty
How many ways in this srticle will LLN spell HEVT as it is on the truck & HVET several times in the article???
07/25, 1:05 PM
posted by:
brassmonkey
Yeah, what he said.
07/25, 1:19 PM
posted by:
Nightblack_97
It’s going to take awhile to properly convert trucks to hybrid/EV status due to their design. No storage space to put the batteries unless you take up some of the bed which kind of defeats the purpose of a truck.
07/25, 2:28 PM
posted by:
xyunya
Nightblack_97, what would be the motivating factor to convert truck to hybrid? Why not drop diesel in it and have a better truck?
07/25, 2:40 PM
posted by:
RaineMan
There is plenty of space in a truck underneath the bed. The sidewalls of the beds are like 4′ high now… a few years ago they were only 2′ high. Slap the batteries under there… raise the bed floor up a foot… noone is going to miss it.
07/25, 6:29 PM
posted by:
jayjc08
Holy **** though, the idea of slapping the powertrain from a 20 ton bus into a two ton pick-up sure does sound fun though! It’d be a real sleeper and pretty good on fuel too!
07/26, 1:56 AM
posted by:
jdasch1
This conversion was $60k plus the donor vehicle. Ford knows how to build a great electric vehicle…I drive one every day that was built by Ford. It goes 70-95 miles per charge and uses no gas. They spent 300 million on 1400 trucks between 1998-2001. Then all but a handfull were crushed…I have one of them and it it drives like a v-6 Ranger. The big hurdle in developing a serial plug-in hybrid is battery cost. If they can get the batteries down to less than $3000 per vehicle with a 30 mile electric only range, they would be cranking them out around the clock..demand would be huge for a 1/2 ton pickup with 30 EV only miles and a Ecoboost 4 banger for the primary. Ford knows how to build one…they just don’t have funding for the battery development process. To bad the USA cannot use the billions that are going to gas and oil subsities for battery research…what a shame.