Plug-In Hybrids

• PLUG-IN HYBRIDS</span>
  Making green cars greener costs a bundle
  With $24,000 add-on, plug-in Toyota Prius is mostly for rich
  
  Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer
  Saturday, July 21, 2007
  
  <span style="font-family:Georgia">Want to be the first on your block with a $50,000 Toyota Prius?
  
  Head to Hybrids Plus in Boulder, Colo., and leave your Prius with their technicians. Go skiing or something, come back in three or four days with a check for $24,000 and you will have one of the nation's very few plug-in hybrids that should easily get 100 miles per gallon.
  
  A plug-in is an ordinary hybrid with an electric motor and gasoline engine that has been modified -- usually by upgrading its battery pack or adding more batteries -- so it can go a lot farther on electric power than it normally does. On Thursday, a study funded by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a power-industry group lined up behind advocates in dubbing plug-ins the car of the future, albeit the distant future.