When it comes to our cars and the environment, we are all slightly sociopathic—even those movie stars in their Toyota Priuses. It's just a matter of degree.

If you commute 25 km each way to work in a mid-sized car, you make an annual contribution to the Earth's atmosphere of about 5500 kg of carbon dioxide and 1300 grams of the pollutant brew known as smog, according to a study by the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif. A comparable conventional hybrid vehicle, such as the justly venerated Prius, will cut those emissions by roughly 25 percent and 15 percent, respectively, EPRI says.

Now add an electrical outlet plug to that hybrid, a bigger battery, and a few other modest changes, and a remarkable thing happens. "What you get is this very efficient vehicle on gasoline that can also be an electric vehicle, which is even more efficient," says Mark Duvall, an expert on hybrid vehicles at EPRI.

In round numbers, the total amount of energy you use to travel in your car, week in and week out, is cut by as much as 50 percent, depending on the efficiency of your local utility's generating plants. And you don't have to give up the slightest bit of performance, comfort, or range. Need to take a 1000-km trip that crosses mountainous terrain? No problem. You can travel in air-conditioned comfort, smug as a Prius-driving film star in the knowledge that over the long haul, you are cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and smog by at least 50 percent, according to EPRI's figures. Best of all, dependence on petroleum comes down by a whopping 75 percent, on average, in the United States.

That, in a nutshell, is the promise of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, and it is about to be demonstrated in a US $1.5 million pilot program based at a facility of DaimlerChrysler AG in Mannheim, Germany. Several U.S. organizations are helping fund the project; they include EPRI, California's South Coast Air Quality Management District, the utility colossus Southern California Edison Co., and the Metropolitan Energy Center of Kansas City, Mo.

Under the project, DaimlerChrysler is putting together three commercial vehicles—two light-duty utility trucks slated for California and a public transit van for Kansas City—all based on the company's rugged Sprinter truck. But instead of the Sprinter's standard 156-horsepower (115-KW) diesel engine, the utility vans are going to be outfitted with a hybrid gasoline-electric propulsion system and a beefy battery pack that can be recharged by plugging it in.

Winner: Plug-In Sprinter Van

Goal

Build three hybrid gasoline-electric service trucks whose batteries can also be charged overnight

Why It'S A Winner

Hybrid cars are poised for steady growth, and plug-ins improve upon ordinary hybrids because they can cruise in a pure-electric mode

Organizations

DaimlerChrysler, EPRI, Southern California Edison Co., South Coast Air Quality Management District, Metropolitan Energy Center

Center Of Gravity

DaimlerChrysler facility in Mannheim, Germany

Number Of People On The Project

Approximately 15

Budget

US $1 525 000 (total project cost)

The resulting trucks will be able to travel at least 32 km between rechargings in a pure-electric mode. For longer trips, the vehicle will respond to the dwindling charge on the batteries by automatically firing up the truck's combustion engine, which will begin recharging the batteries and spinning the wheels, extending the range indefinitely.