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I'm posting this because a "new" team in Chicago has converted a Ford F150 to a PHEV with an electric range of 15 miles and up to 41 mpg for 30 miles of hybrid driving. It appears this new team can convert almost any vehicle :confused: to a PHEV! Here is the link to this Chicago area team: http://hevt.com/flyers/HEVT%20Ford%20F-150%20Flyer-July%207%202008(3).pdf

http://http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff26/Billyk24/hevt_500ford150pickup.jpg

I'm sure the Chicago area hypermilers would like more information from these folks. Yes, I know Joe SixPack can not afford a pricey conversion like this today.

$60,000 plus the truck seems a bit steep

Agreed...a bit steep but cool. I'd like to know the mpg for that truck without using the plug in funciton (i.e. start with a drained hybrid battery & drive from there). I'd also like to know how this would effect a vehicles towing and off-road (think constuction site, not deep forest) ability.

The data is pretty sparse, but it looks like they aren't setup to do hybrid to PHEV, only gas to PHEV.

Still, if the truck can do everyting it could do before and manages even 30mpg as a simple hybrid, I'm thinking it's a fairly reasonable investment for those who really need a truck and the prices wil hopefully fall pretty quickly the first year.

They should consider designing the thing to act like a generator for those who need power onsite. Not having to purchase and carry around a generator would dramaticly increase the value for those who need it. Certainly we have already seen that even a Prius with plug-in ability can do this, so it doesn't seem a stretch.