For many motorists, 75 cents and 100 miles per gallon of gasoline would be a dream. For Oakwood resident Alan Shedd, it’s a reality. For nearly six months, Shedd, an engineer with Jackson Electric Membership Corp., has been testing his company’s plug-in hybrid electric Toyota Prius, one of the first of its kind.
As part of a two-year research project, sponsored by Cooperative Research Network, Shedd and a team of engineers converted a hybrid Toyota Prius into a plug-in, gasoline-electric hybrid. The keys to creating this environmentally friendly and fuel efficient vehicle involved, among other things, increasing the size of the battery and adding a plug-in charger.
The car’s lithium-ion battery, located in the trunk, “is like an oversized computer battery,” he said. Holding up to nine kilowatt-hours of energy, it is composed of 2,400 smaller battery cells, each the size of a roll of quarters.
Using both electricity and gasoline for power, the modified Prius gets great gas mileage. The car can go 600 to 800 miles “easily on one 10-gallon tank,” Shedd said.