Support is intensifying in Congress for hybrid owners' tax breaks. The owners who convert their vehicles to plug-ins will be eligible for such tax break. But doing so would invalidate the manufacturer's warranty.
U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the head of the House global warming committee who has been pushing a 40 percent raise in vehicle mileage standards by 2018, proposed his "Plug-in Hybrid Opportunity Act of 2007" on Wednesday. The bill would give gasoline-electric hybrid owners a 35 percent tax credit to settle up the costs of converting their vehicle to plug-ins.
In June, an analogous legislation was proposed in the Senate. Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Barack Obama, D-Ill., want to offer consumers up to $7,500 in tax credits to convert hybrids to plug-ins. Dubbed the "Fuel Reduction using Electrons to End Dependence On the Mideast Act of 2007," or the FREEDOM Act, it also would give automakers incentives to manufacture plug-in vehicles.
The House Ways and Means Committee also is considering such tax incentives. Auto manufacturers have been critical of the effort. Converting a vehicle not only invalidates the manufacturer's warranty, but also necessitates the installation of several hundred pounds of batteries and often results to the removal of the spare tire.
The Toyota Motor Corp., which has sold one million hybrids around the globe, including 750,000 units in the United States, over the last decade, said that converting a hybrid risks vehicle fires, and actually increases greenhouse gas emissions.
Charles Ing, Toyota's director of governmental affairs, told the Senate that tests of two converted plug-in Toyota Prius vehicles show they had significantly higher emissions of nitrogen oxide. "This raises the question of whether the government should be paying people to make their cars dirtier," Ing wrote.
The Prius is one of the first mass-produced hybrids worldwide. The car is certified as a Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). With the 2004 model, the Prius was redesigned as a midsize hatchback slotting between the Corolla and Camry, and is certified as an Advanced Technology Partial zero-emissions vehicle (AT-PZEV).
But there are many ardent enthusiasts of conversion plug-ins. Several battery manufacturers, including Watertown, Mass.-based A123, are selling conversion kits for around $10,000.
Markey will hold a hearing and demonstration today with A123's president and CEO, David Vieau. The hearing also will include the mayor of Austin, Texas, and actor Rob Lowe, who supports hybrids. A Markey spokesman, Eben Burnham-Snyder, said that Lowe "had driven a plug-in hybrid and is passionate about the issue."
Automakers were critical of the decision to include Lowe. "This is a new low in policy making. This is a serious public policy issue potentially impacting millions of jobs, not a Hollywood production," said Charles Territo, the spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the trade group that represents the Detroit Three, Toyota, and BMW, among other automakers.
Though automakers oppose converting existing hybrids to plug-ins, they are working to develop plug-in technology for the future. Detroit's Big Three have each said the technology is being looked at - after years of outright dismissal. The would be emitting cleaner emissions in the future.
But Toyota's announcement was more significant because the company is presumed to have the technology to actually bring such cars to market, analysts said.
"When you combine plugging-in - which pushes fuel efficiency over 100 miles per gallon - with biofuels, then you're getting into multiple hundreds of miles per gallon," said Bradley Berman, the publisher of hybridcars.com, a technology website. "It starts to look like a real here-and-now solution to oil dependence, air quality, and climate change."
