PHEVs: Toyota versus GM

SAE explores the differences of plug-in hybrids

GreenCarCongress has a great summary of papers presented yesterday at SAE regarding different plug-in hybrid vehicles - plug-in parallel hybrids versus series hybrids.

Basically, Toyota believes that, in the near term, plug-in parallel hybrids will achieve more cost-effective performance than series hybrids, or range extended vehicles, as GM prefers to call the Chevy Volt.

GM seems to accept this possibility, which is why GM is building both types of plug-in hybrids concurrently. Still, GM and GreenCarCongress believe range extended vehicles offer the greatest long term potential.