Salem Electric's Roger Kuhlman shows how to plug in his newly converted Ford Escape. (Photo by Michael W. Kahn.)

Once Roger Kuhlman’s Ford Escape was converted to a plug-in hybrid, he wasted no time.

Pulling out of the Hybrids Plus shop in Boulder, Colo., Jan. 11 with their engineer, he test drove it around the area to make sure everything was working properly. Satisfied that it was, Kuhlman set off the next morning on a 1,000-mile trek to a Cooperative Research Network meeting in Phoenix, Arizona.

“Everything works well,” said Kuhlman, engineering and operations manager at Salem Electric, Salem, Ore. “The first hour we’re getting 80 to 100 miles per gallon. After the battery is depleted we drop down to about 30 miles per gallon.”

That’s nothing to scoff at, especially considering he was once driving a Ford Explorer that got about 12 miles to the gallon.

The SUV is the fourth conventional hybrid converted as part of a CRN project. The fleet includes another Escape and two Toyota Priuses.

Kuhlman learned quickly that driving a PHEV puts a whole new spin on otherwise routine activities, such as checking into a hotel. Now it means having to ask where the car can be plugged in.

“The hotel people have been very cooperative about it. After we explained what we’re doing they said, ‘That’s cool, sure, no problem.’”

Well, maybe one problem.

“We got into Flagstaff and the manager of the hotel allowed me to plug it into a signpost they had out there. The signpost was photo controlled, so it came on when it got dark, went off when it got light in the morning,” he told Electric Co-op Today.

“Of course, about seven o’clock in the morning the sun was coming up, so the power went off to the sign, and the power went off to the charger, too.” The SUV was about 80-90 percent charged.

Unlike the Prius, the plug for the Escape isn’t easy to spot. “This one they’ve hidden up under the tail lift,” Kuhlman explained. “That keeps it out of the weather.”

CRN’s PHEV testing will expand this year when Blue Grass Energy, Nicholasville, Ky., Central Electric Power Cooperative, Columbia, S.C., and Central Indiana Power, Greenfield, convert vehicles.

This article by Michael W. Kahn reprinted with permission from Electric Co-op Today.