News Highlights

Unique Minnesota State Mankato program will retrofit vehicles for the future

Hybrid alternatives

The Minnesota Legislature is encouraging Minnesota State Mankato to test methods to retrofit flexible-fuel vehicles to operate as plug-in hybrids.

2006-05-31
By Patty Janovec [This article has been reprinted with permission from the May 12 issue of Session Weekly, the nonpartisan newsmagazine published by the Minnesota House of Representatives Public Information Services office. For more information call 651-296-0337.]

A hybrid vehicle, in simple terms, is a vehicle mainly powered by gas with an electric assist, while a plug-in hybrid vehicle is mainly electric with a gas-assist function.

The Legislature strongly encouraged the Minnesota Center for Automotive Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato to retrofit two flexible fuel vehicles to operate as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles under HF3718.  Rep. Frank Hornstein (DFL-Mpls), who sponsored the proposal, said the retrofit would "reconfigure the battery in such a way that it could be plugged in overnight and the first 30 miles are on electricity alone, and thereafter you're capable of getting over 100 miles per gallon."

The bill also gives the school the ability to accept donations and work with nonprofit agencies, higher education institutions and others to collect the funds for the costs of retrofitting the hybrid vehicles.

"When you start out on things, you can't look for cost savings right off the bat. You've got to prove the technology. You need to get them in the real world so people can use them and they can make improvement," said Bruce Jones, a center professor.

"This is not some pie-in-the-sky futuristic vision. The technology and the components of this technology are here now," Hornstein said.

One could consider this program as setting the technological bar for legislating the retrofit project. Jones has been receiving calls from places as far away as California on the possibilities of legislating similar programs. The Mankato automotive engineering program is the only four-year program like it in the nation, he said.

Undergraduate students in the program would do the retrofitting. "What better way to work on a project like this than undergraduate students that are going to be going out working for these companies making these decisions.

"I think we need to start looking at these options and alternatives, and the more of them that are out there, the scale of economies work in their favor that costs are gonna come down," Jones said.

HF3718 also:

• requires the state to purchase plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) for its vehicle fleet;
• requires all solicitation documents for the purchase of  passenger automobiles to include the statement, "It is the intention of the state of Minnesota to begin purchasing PHEVs and neighborhood electric vehicles as soon as they become commercially available, meet the state's performance specification, and are priced no more than ten percent above the price for comparable gasoline-powered vehicles"; and
• establishes a PHEV task force to identify barriers to the adoption of such vehicles by state agencies, small and large private fleets, and Minnesota drivers at large, and develop strategies to be implemented over one-, three- and five-year time frames to overcome those barriers.

The task force analysis is also to include "possible financial incentives to encourage Ford Motor Company to produce plug-in hybrid and flexible fuel vehicles at its St. Paul plant."

"There needs to be statements from state and local governments across the country to the manufacturers that we are ready, that we are ready as a state to lead by example, and we are serious, not just rhetorical, about lessening our dependence on foreign oil," Hornstein said.

Although plug-in hybrid electric vehicles aren't necessarily for those who commute longer distances, the vehicles can potentially be powered at least 20 miles by electricity. Jones said that is the distance the majority of Minnesota commuters travel to work nearly every day.

Another alternative for consumers that has already hit the commercial vehicle market are so-called "smart cars." Sponsored by Rep. Greg Blaine (R-Little Falls) and Sen. Paul Koering (R-Fort Ripley), HF1838*/SF1811/CH189 defines the "smart car" as a "neighborhood electric vehicle" and sets the restrictions for its operation. It was signed into law May 4.

Defined as an "electrically powered motor vehicle that has four wheels, and has a speed attainable in one mile of at least 20 miles per hour but not more than 25 miles per hour on a paved level surface," the cars are restricted from going on roads with speed limits of more than 35 miles per hour, "except to make a direct crossing" of a street or highway with a higher speed limit, under the proposal.

"It's moving us into that electric car future. We join 35 to 40 other states that have already made these road legal," said Rep. Al Juhnke (DFL-Willmar), who sponsors a similar bill (HF2734), which he voluntarily laid over.

The vehicles would be subject to all the same requirements as other cars such as turn signals, license plates, windshields and seat belts, said Juhnke.

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