One of the top selling hybrids on the market right now is the Toyota Prius, however in the near future the market will start to grow as several other viable hybrid options go on sale. The Prius is a hybrid electric mid-size car that has been around since 1997, being sold in Japan, and was sold globally in 2001. The United States accounts for more than half of the total Prius’ sold worldwide and Toyota has recently begun to increase their hybrid efforts with their most recent project being the Plug-in hybrid Prius.

The 2010 Prius Plug-in Hybrid (PHV) has already been scoped out by the automotive insiders and they have reported back that the new Prius expands Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive technology because of the introduction of the lithium-ion drive battery. The benefit of this new battery is that it allows for an all electric operation at higher speeds and longer distances in comparison to the conventional Prius. With a full charge under its hood the Prius Plug-in Hybrid has a maximum range of roughly 13 miles and it has the capacity to reach speeds up to 60 miles per hour in its electric mode. If you attempt to drive longer distances the car will go back into its hybrid mode which is standard in all Prius’, sold at your local Champaign Toyota dealer.

Recently, 150 units of the Prius Plug-in Hybrid have been shipped out to universities, corporations, city, state and federal governments and other car experts to test the PHV’s out at their own discretion.

The lithium-ion drive battery is composed of three battery backs, one core battery accompanied by two supporting or additional battery packs. When the Plug-in Hybrid begins to run it will automatically be in the all-electric mode utilizing the core battery as its main source of power. Once the main battery runs out of juice it will remove itself from the circuit and it will allocate electrical energy from pack number two. When the second pack becomes depleted then the PHV will go back into its conventional hybrid mode that is most common in a regular Prius. The core battery pack will then revert back to being used as the electrical power source, leaving battery number two empty until the Prius is plugged back in. At 100 watts the Prius will take 180 minutes to charge and at a 200 watt charge the Prius will take only 100 minutes to charge.

The Plug-in Hybrid Prius can offer its drivers over 100 miles per gallon when using the all-electric mode, this is reason enough to look more into this car, to find at more talk to representatives at your local preowned Prius Campaign dealer.