2006
At the UC Davis Hybrid Center, teams led by Professor Andrew A. Frank have been designing and building working prototypes, installed into a GM Equinox for the Challenge X competition.
PHEV conversions of IVECO medium-duty diesel-powered commercial vehicles, sold as Hybrid Daily Bimodales, are offered by Micro-Vett SPA of Imola, Italy in truck, nine-passenger van, and 20-passenger schoolbus configurations. Micro-Vett offers their conversions with either lead-acid or lithium-ion battery packs, which have an advertised all-electric range of 25 kilometers, or 45 to 100 kilometers, respectively.
February: Hymotion, a Canadian company, introduced plug-in hybrid upgrade kits in February 2006. Designed for the Toyota Prius and the Ford Escape and Mariner Hybrids, these kits were offered to fleet buyers at first and are projected to be available to the general public in 2007.
April 14: Piaggio, the Italian manufacturer of Vespa scooters, announced that it had built two parallel-architecture plug-in hybrid prototypes based on the standard Vespa LX 50 and X8 125 models.
May 17: Representatives of academia, government, and the utility and auto industries testified before the House Science Subcommittee on Energy in support of proposed legislation that would advance the commercialization of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
May: Ryan Fulcher and Rich Rudman of Manzanita Micro converted Fulcher's Prius to a plug-in hybrid, using components that would lead to the introduction of a Manzanita Micro charger kit for PHEV conversions.
July 5: Hybrids Plus of Boulder, Colorado began offering plug-in hybrid conversions of the 2004 and later Toyota Prius, using A123 Li-ion batteries for either a 15 or 30-mile (48 km) all-electric range. Their first contract was with the Colorado Office of Energy Management and Conservation, which ordered one plug-in Prius conversion. The vehicle was handed over to Colorado OEMC on March 6, 2007.
July 18: Toyota announced that it "plans to develop a hybrid vehicle that will run locally on batteries charged by a typical 120-volt outlet before switching over to a gasoline engine for longer hauls." The next major update to the Toyota Prius is said to use lithium ion batteries. Toyota’s fuel economy target for the upcoming next-generation Prius has been reported to be 40 kilometers/liter (2.5 l/100 km, or 94 mpg US.)
August: PML Flightlink unveiled an in-wheel, plug-in series hybrid conversion of a MINI at the British Motor Show, the MINI QED. PML claimed fuel economy of 80 mpg, 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 4.5 seconds, top speed of over 150 mph (240 km/h), and a range of 1,000 miles (1,600 km).
October: Hybrids Plus won a contract to convert a Ford Escape Hybrid to a plug-in hybrid for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
November 1: Manzanita Micro sold their first PiPrius conversion kit using their PFC charger and battery regulator as a DC to DC converter and rapid battery charger system. Chelan County’s Advanced Vehicle Initiative received the first conversion kit from Manzanita Micro in October 2006. As of April 2007 the fourth and fifth such conversions were underway.
November 29: GM announced plans to introduce a production plug-in hybrid version of Saturn's Greenline Vue SUV with an all electric range of 10 miles (16 km).
Read more about this topic: History Of Plug-in Hybrids