egmCarTech

Google’s philanthropic arm today announced the RechargeIT initiative. Google.org awarded $1 million in grants and announced plans for a $10 million request for proposals (RFP) to fund development, adoption and commercialization of plug-ins, fully electric cars and related vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology. Google aims to speed up the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

As part of the program, RechargeIT has created a test fleet of cars consisting of conventional Prius and Ford Escape Hybrid cars as well as several Prius and Ford Escapes that have been retrofitted to become plug-in hybrid vehicles.

For example, the regular Toyota Prius gets 40.9 mpg while the Toyota Prius Plug-in from RechargeIT gets 73.6. To date, RechargeIT plug-in hybrids are averaging about 75 miles per gallon of gasoline which is four times that of the average car on the road in the US today.

Watch the video above for more info

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