The license plate on his white Ford Fusion Energi reads 101 MPGZ.
That was Harish Singh’s goal when he leased the new car three years ago. He wanted to get 101 miles per gallon of gasoline with that plug-in hybrid.
He’s already beat that goal, averaging just more than 500 mpg last year, when he drove about 14,000 miles and filled up at the gas station just once.Ìý
Singh is passionate about his car, about using less gasoline and about the joy of owning a plug-in hybrid that gives you the best of both worlds.
The white car, with tan-leather, heated seats and a power moon roof, looks just like a conventional Fusion, except for the battery in the trunk and what looks like two fuel doors. There’s a square flap near the rear of the car for gas. And there's a round flap, in front of the driver’s door, hiding the charging port, the plug-in.
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Singh can drive on just the battery or he can switch to gasoline.
So Singh can drive for about 20 miles on only the battery before it needs to be recharged, a little less in cold weather. Other plug-in hybrids do have more range, he said.
And if he wants to make a longer trip, he can fill up the gas tank in five minutes and drive to Chicago on that 14-gallon tank of gas, he points out.Ìý
Singh is a University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate student, pursuing a doctorate in energy economics, who has a job driving people with disabilities to appointments and an internship as an economic analyst for Nebraska Community Energy Alliance.
Singh plans his driving day so he can use the battery most of the time. He can plug in at home for an overnight recharge. And he can plug in at any downtown city garage for $1. It takes 90 minutes if his battery is depleted.
That careful planning and short trip life put Singh among the two best Ford Fusion or C-MAX Energi fuel conservers in the country — at least among those participating in the competition using an app on their smartphone.
His mileage now is a little less, but he still has a lifetime average of more than 400 mpg. He’s driven 44,000 miles and used 106 gallons of fuel.
Singh is consistently first in the region in gas mileage but has trouble beating out an owner on the west coast, who he assumes lives in California, and who is consistently No. 1.
In electric mode, Singh points out that his car is smooth, quiet, with instant torque.
And you can’t beat the economics, even when gasoline is relatively inexpensive, he says.
Right now he is paid 54 cents a mile when he uses his car to drive clients of Region V Services. It costs him about 2 cent a mile when he is using electric only. So his expense check makes his car payment. (He recently decided to buy the car he had been leasing).
People like the plug-in hybrids to save money and for improving the environment. But Singh’s main objective in getting this plug-in hybrid was for patriotic reasons.
“My motivation was to get off of oil. And I have found it incredibly easy to get off of oil,†he said.
Singh said he and his plug-in hybrid are supporting the local economy, using electricity produced in Nebraska, though some of it is made with coal from Wyoming.
However, oil is a global commodity and the price of gas in Lincoln is set, in part, by the world market and always will be, says Singh, who has an undergraduate degree from UNL in economics.
Even if you don’t care about the environment, Singh said, it is patriotic to keep your money out of the hands of the Middle East.
"It is better to send some of my money to Wyoming (for the coal) than to send it to Saudi Arabia," he said.
Plug-ins, he believes, are the car of the future, especially when people realize you are not giving up anything. It’s like a normal car with a little electric car inside of it.
"Right now I’m kind of a plug-in fanatic. If you’ve got a wall outlet within 25 feet of where you park a car, then you can use a plug-in hybrid."
And he expects people who have conventional hybrids will easily switch to the plug-ins. In fact, plug-in Priuses are outselling the regular Prius, he said.
Many people drive less than 25 miles a day, so they could do well with the plug-in hybrid, he says.Ìý
Singh loves his car. It’s a good-looking car, with great performance and handling, he said.ÌýAnd Singh has a list of the benefits that roll off his tongue with no prompting:
* He can turn the car on and off with a phone. It will text message him when it is finished charging.
* He expects the car to have a long life.ÌýRight now, Singh has 44,000 miles on the odometer and 4,000 miles on the gas engine, and expects to keep the car for 300,000 miles.
*Â Summer or winter, his pit bull-lab mix Rosy is comfy in the car by herself, with the heater or air conditioner run by the battery, but with the engine off and the door locked so no one can steal the car or dog.
*Â Singh expects the battery to last beyond the 100,000-mile warranty, because California requires a 150,000-mile warranty. The replacement battery, he says, will likely cost less than $1,000.
* And when he uses gasoline, which he doesn’t do very often, he gets around 40 mpg.
*Â Singh changes his oil every two years, not because he uses a lot of oil but because oil goes bad after that time.