While the Tokyo Motor Show features its usual array of unusual concept vehicles, Japanese automakers also brought a few vehicles that appear closer to reality. Toyota brought its Prius Plug-in Hybrid Concept, which was first displayed at the Frankfurt International Motor Show. The vehicle integrates a lithium-ion battery pack into the third-generation Prius, achieving an electric-only cruising range of about 12 miles. Toyota plans to introduce 500 of the vehicles globally, including 150 in the U.S.
Fuji Heavy Industries, maker of Subaru automobiles, is displaying the Subaru Hybrid Tourer Concept, a four-seat vehicle with gull-wing doors that combines a 2-liter, turbocharged, direct-injection gasoline engine with a continuously variable transmission and two axle-mounted motors. A lithium-ion battery pack provides energy storage for the vehicle. And Suzuki is displaying the Swift Plug-in Hybrid, which also has an electric-only cruising range of about 12 miles, drawing on a lithium-ion battery pack.
The Tokyo Motor Show 2009 is open to the public through November 4. See the Toyota press releases from the Tokyo Motor Show and the Frankfurt Show, as well as the Prius Plug-in Hybrid Concept Web page from the Tokyo Motor Show; the press releases from FHI (PDF 75 KB) and Suzuki; and the Tokyo Motor Show Web site.
EPA Names Top 20 Green-Powered Schools
For the first time, the U.S. EPA named the 20 primary and secondary schools nationwide using the most power from renewable energy. The schools participating in its Green Power Partnership are buying nearly 113 million kWh of green power annually, offsetting the GHG emissions that would be produced from the electricity used by 11,000 U.S. homes for a year.
The five top schools are the Austin Independent School District and the Round Rock Independent School District in Texas; the Rochester City School District in New York; the Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland; and The Dalton School in New York City.
EPA's Green Power Partnership works with 1,100 organizations to voluntarily purchase green. Overall, EPA Green Power Partners are buying more than 17 billion kWh of green energy annually, equivalent to the GHG emissions from the electricity used by nearly 1.7 million U.S. homes annually. See the EPA press release, the list of top 20 K-12 schools, and EPA's Green Power Partnership Web site.
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EREE Network News is a weekly publication of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
