Is it necessary to plug the batteries of hybrid cars to the power grid to re-charge them?
There are no commercially-available plug-in hybrids on the market so far. (So you cannot plug a hybrid in, other than the same gas station pump that most other regular/conventional cars use.) The hybrid battery is recharged either through regenerative braking (kinetic energy from coasting/slowing down spins a generator to make potential energy in the battery) and/or by taking excess power from the gasoline engine (use the gasoline engine as a generator) to recharge the hybrid battery. There is no plug. No charging off the mains/local electric supply. Some hobbiests and aftermarket companies have been altering a few hybrids (Prius, Ford Escape Hybrid/Mercury Mariner Hybrid) to make them plug-in capable. Typically this requires adding additional hybrid batteries, besides the ability to charge off the mains. For more information, check out http://www.calcars.org/vehicles.html For cost reasons, unless you are a fleet owner o
