Hybrids Plus was a company operating from 2006 to 2009 that was devoted to converting

hybrid electric vehicles A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) system with an electric propulsion system (hybrid vehicle drivetrain). The presence of the electric powertrain is intended ...

(HEVs) to

plug-in hybrid A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by plugging a charging cable into an external electric power source, in addition to internally by its on-board internal combustion engin ...

s (PHEVs), including

vehicle-to-grid Vehicle-to-grid (V2G), also known as Vehicle-to-home (V2H) or Vehicle-to-load (V2L) describes a system in which plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) sell demand response services to the grid. Demand services are either delivering electricity or by red ...

capable PHEVs.

History

The company was founded July, 2006 in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Colora ...

to convert a

Toyota Prius The is a car built by Toyota which has a hybrid drivetrain, combining an internal combustion engine with an electric motor. Initially offered as a four-door sedan, it has been produced only as a five-door liftback since 2003. In 2007, ...

for the State of

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

. In 2007 Hybrids Plus won a contract with the

New York State Energy Research and Development Authority The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), established in 1935, is a New York State public-benefit corporation, located in Albany, New York, with regional offices in New York City, Buffalo, and West Valley. NYSERDA ...

, to convert a Ford Escape, and a contract with

Xcel Energy Xcel Energy Inc. is an American utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico in 2019. It consists of four oper ...

to convert 6 Escapes to V2G capable PHEVs. In 2007 Hybrids Plus started the development of the "Inverger," a bidirectional charger and inverter for

applications, funded in part by a grant from the State of Colorado, Governor's Energy Office. In the summer of 2008, a malfunction due to a manufacturing error in one of its Prius PHEVs conversions resulted in a fire that destroyed the vehicle. As a consequence, the company started a program to examine and upgrade each of the PHEV conversions it had manufactured. After this, only one more Prius PHEV conversion was completed and then that product line was discontinued. Towards the end of its existence, it converted Ford Escape HEVs to PHEVs by replacing the stock battery with a PHEV battery in the original location (as opposed to augmenting the stock battery with an additional battery, as normally done by other PHEV conversions), and adding a charger and a plug. In fall 2008,

A123 Systems A123 Systems, LLC, a subsidiary of the Chinese Wanxiang Group Holdings, is a developer and manufacturer of lithium iron phosphate batteries and energy storage systems. The company was founded in 2001 by Yet-Ming Chiang, Bart Riley, and Ric Fulo ...

contracted Hybrids Plus to recall all of the vehicles it converted, and remove A123's Li-Ion cells. In April 2009, Hybrids Plus ceased operations. Its assets were absorbed by Eetrex, a company whose owners include some of the former shareholders of Hybrids Plus.

References

External links

''IEEE Spectrum'' article
featuring a PHEV conversion by Hybrids Plus
''AutoBlogGreen'' articleNYSERDA program
{dead link, date=November 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Privately held companies based in Colorado American companies established in 2006 American companies disestablished in 2009