Plug-In Partners is an organization that supports support and development and accelerated commercialization of plug-in vehicles. The organization was started by Austin Energy, a very progressive utility in Austin, Texas.

The premise towards going either all electric or plug-in electric for vehicles is simple. First, when most vehicles are off the road at night there is tremendous excess capacity at power plants. In fact, if 80% of cars on the road today were electric, we would need no additional electric capacity if everyone plugged them in at night.

This would immediately reduce greenhouse gases by up to 60% (even using the dirty power plants we have now), and pave the way for more clean energy infrastructure like wind and solar.

We know the only obstacle now in getting more electric vehicles on the road is power storage. Batteries are still too costly and don't last long enough. In fact, a lithium ion battery pack for an all electric car costs $35,000 (AC propulsion), and a battery system to convert a Prius to add 40 miles of electric range costs $10,000. The economics are clearly not there.