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Can any ordinary gassoline car be converted into a hybrid vehicle?

Is it possible to buy components off the shelf and have vehicle converted?

Public Comments

1. It would be far more expensive than buying a hybrid but anything is possible.
2. Well not off the shelf, Iam a auto mech of 25 years,it can be done,but not cost effctive ,however it will cost you more than you might expect, and finding someone to do it many years ago i converted cars & trucks to propane, they work well, Zero Emmisions but everyone in the auto indst & gov.are going the way you want to go, just, wait and see what comes up in the next year, and the prices go down on these type cars, and you might like what you see. steve.
3. Something that has been "converted" is rarely as good as something that was "designed" for the purpose. Sure, you would have the satisfaction of (maybe) completing the job, but the end result would be less than impressive.
4. Very expensive unless you already have a machine shop and know how to weld.
5. The reason they can build hybrids now is the electric motor technology built into the flywheel and bell housing. With a regular car, there is nothing to "convert." Hybrids use both mechanical engine and electrical motor power. To make a true conversion, you would need some way to add an electric motor to the drivetrain, and then control the power split between the electric motor and gas engine. I know of no off-the-shelf power splitters that would fit this application. A possibilty would be to get a small 4WD pickup and put an electric motor on the front wheels and the gas motor on the rear. Again, it won't really be a hybrid because you would have to manually do the powerspliting by applying the throttle to the gas engine and varying the electric power to the motor at the same time. You would probably have to put another transmission to the electric motor, since most off-the-shelf DC motors, like a bomb-bay door motor from a B52 (a common motor for conversions) still requires a gear change to work at the range of speeds a car does. When you add the weight of all this crap, with the battery pack, you will use more gas than you did before. I would say with the way drivetrains are put together on gas engined cars, it can't be done since there is no power splitting option. The only hybrid conversion would be to convert the engine to electrical power with a generator, and convert the main motive power to electric, then power split from the generator to the battery pack.