Dec 16 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Deb Kelly The Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, Ind.

Duke Energy is taking its use of electricity to a whole new level.

As part of a companywide initiative to educate customers and reduce fuel use, Duke Energy has brought in a small fleet of plug-in hybrid vehicles, or PHEVs, to show off the benefits of such cars.

Rick Burger, district manager of Duke Energy, talked Monday about one of the vehicles that is in use by the Terre Haute office -- five other vehicles are being used by Duke Energy offices in other cities.

The Toyota Prius, silver in color, with the Duke Energy logo on the door, works with a gasoline engine plus a rechargeable electric battery that plugs into a standard 120-volt outlet.

The vehicle is reportedly able to get more than 100 miles per gallon. Burger, who has been driving the PHEV for about a week, said he has recorded between 62 and 65 miles per gallon, driving both on the highway and in town.

The cost of the cars is between $25,000 and $30,000 each, Burger said.

"We purchased six of these cars throughout the Duke Energy system -- including the Carolinas, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio," Burger said. "The reason we as an energy company have done this is because, first of all, we want to educate the community on hybrid cars, but also, as people talked about air pollution and green emissions, these are good vehicles to have out on the road."

The fuel mileage of the hybrid works out to about 2 to 4 cents per mile versus an estimated 8 to 20 cents per mile in a standard, non-hybrid car, according to www.calcars.org, when estimating a gallon of gas at $3 gallon.

"I think cars like this are things of the future," Burger said. "I think as we look at greenhouse emissions, we're looking toward energy conservation."

He added that such vehicles could help companies such as Duke Energy be more efficient in their uses of energy.

One question Burger said he doesn't know the answer to is how long the battery might last in the hybrid, or how much a replacement battery might cost.

Newsweek reported in May of this year that the cost of a Prius battery is $3,000, not including installation. A spokesman for Toyota stated in that article that today's Prius batteries are designed to last 180,000 miles -- the estimated life of the car.

Burger said the energy company has an additional motivation for encouraging the use of electric hybrid vehicles:

"A lot of people plug in their Blackberrys or phones at night; consider this: if people start plugging electric cars in, how it would affect our business at Duke Energy."

Deb Kelly can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or deb.kelly@tribstar.com.

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