by: Sherry Boschert
List Price: $16.95
as of 09/02/2010 20:17 EDT
Amazon.com's Price: $13.22
You Save: $3.73 (22%)as of 09/02/2010 20:17 EDT
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping.
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 629.22930973
EAN: 9780865715714
ISBN: 0865715718
Label: New Society Publishers
Manufacturer: New Society Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 231
Publication Date: December 01, 2006
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Studio: New Society Publishers
Related Items:
- Build Your Own Electric Vehicle
- The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hybrid and Alternative Fuel Vehicles
- Build Your Own Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (Tab Green Guru Guides)
- Who Killed the Electric Car?
- ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future
- see more
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A politically polarized America is coming together over a new kind of car—the plug-in hybrid that will save drivers money, reduce pollution, and increase US security by reducing dependence on imported oil.
Plug-in Hybrids points out that, where hydrogen fuel-cell cars won’t be ready for decades, the technology for plug-in hybrids exists today. Unlike conventional hybrid cars that can’t run without gasoline, plug-in hybrids use gasoline or cheaper, cleaner, domestic electricity—or both. Although plug-in hybrids are not yet for sale, demand for them is widespread, coming from characters across the political spectrum, such as:
• Chelsea Sexton, the automotive insider: working for General Motors, Sexton fought attempts to destroy the all-electric EV1 car and describes how car companies are resisting plug-in hybrids—and why they’ll make them -anyway.
• Felix Kramer and the tech squad: Kramer started a nonprofit organization using the Internet to tap into a small army of engineers who built the first plug-in Prius hybrids.
• R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and national security hawk: seeing the end of oil supplies looming, Woolsey is demanding plug-in hybrids to wean us from petroleum.
Cautioning that the oil and auto companies know how to undermine the success of plug-in car programs to protect their interests, the book gives readers tools to ensure that plug-in hybrids get to market—and stay here.
Average Rating: 
Rating:
- Hybrids- the new car generation ?I think that hybrids and electric cars will be the new car generation in the next 10 years.
My husband and I strongly considering to buy a car like this.
This book helped us even more to make our decision.
Less pollution, great gas mileage and a big reduce of dependence on imported oil and the way the author described it, makes this book even more interesting.
Rating:
- A Well-Written Book That Misses the PointMany people view the plug-in hybrid as a stepping stone. In other words, we can't just go from 100 years of burning gas in cars for fuel to not using gas at all. While the author's arguments are well-researched and well-founded, I find part of the answer to our importation of foreign oil missing. Plug-in hybrids cars use both an electric motor AND an internal combustion engine (Gas). When you run out of electric power (from plugging in), the car converts to gas and internal combustion. So actually, there are even more moving parts in a plug-in hybrid. And big automotive gets to keep selling us transmissions, oil filters, water pumps, etc. While plug-in hybrids may help with long trips (an objection people have made to 100% electric cars), for the average commuter, why buy a hybrid with an internal combustion engine if 100% electric cars become available? According to "Who Killed the Electric Car", the NiMH batteries that fueled the 100% electric Saturn EV-1s met the needs of 95% of consumers. I would rather put my eggs in that basket than new, complicated and expensive plug-in hybrids.
Rating:
- Everything you want to know about electric cars and plug-in hybrids, and why they are not yet in the marketThis is a very well written and comprehensive treatise regarding the technological evolution and behind the scenes stories of electric cars, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids, reflecting the state-of-the-art as of circa 2006 (a lot has happened since). Despite the author's ideological bias, a committed environmentalist and co-founder of the San Francisco Electric Vehicle Association, Mrs. Boschert makes an objective and strong case for plug-in hybrids as a readily available solution for the US to begin its trek toward oil independence, cleaning urban air, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. She shows how California's experience demonstrates that battery technology is already advanced enough for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles to be available in the market today.
The book debunks several myths and misconceptions regarding these alternative fuel vehicles, and its main focus is the alleged resistance and boycott by Detroit Big Three and Big Oil to avoid any shift towards electric cars or plug-in hybrids, and explains why hybrids, such as the Prius, have been the only option tolerable to them. Several inside stories are used to support this conspiracy theory, particularly regarding the killing of the electric vehicles launched by several automakers in the late nineties as a response to California's Zero-Emission Vehicle mandate.
Even though at first this work might look as the companion book to the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, Mrs Boschert goes well beyond. Besides the fight to save the electric cars GM's EV1 from being crushed, the book also recounts the campaign led by [...] (now Plug In America) activists, and its partial success in rescuing some Ford's Th!nk, and Toyota's RAV4-EV. Along the way, the book tell the initiatives and struggles of several activists and key figures including UC Davies Professor Andrew Frank, considered the father of the plug-in hybrid; activists and enthusiasts from Calcars, the group that converted and developed the PRIUS+, able to reach up to 100 mpg when plug-in; and James Woolsey, former CIA Director, who is advocating the plug-in as a mean to free the US from its oil addiction. The final chapters recount the amazing story on how environmentalist and conservatives have joined forces to promote plug-in hybrids as a readily available solution regardless of their opposing views on global warming.
Despite the political tone and conspiracy theories, the book is worth the reading ... Read More
Rating:
- Not a "How-to"A serendipitous find that changed my perspective on energy policy. I was looking for a how-to book and ordered this one "by mistake." I was somewhat skeptical, but the author held my attention through the entire book. By the time I completed the last page I was convinced that my attraction to plug-in hybrids was correct and my world view had changed considerably.
Rating:
- Review - "Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles", by Sherry Boschert.The title should read :- "Plug-in Hybrids; the Cars that will Transport the World". Sherry Boschert has done a wonderful job in drawing all the pieces together. It is a "must read" for those who have an interest in our transport future. I sincerely hope that by the year 2012, it will be completely implemented. However, I feel that the automobile industry and the oil companies will both fight very strongly, against the adoption of PHEV's. Also, the Governments of the world, will not be sufficiently forceful, to demand, that the automobile manufacturers produce quality PHEV's. They are our only answer, to vehicle pollution of our planet.
