Guest Author

This is a guest post from Jeremy Silverstein, Vice President of Operations and Vehicle Dispatching at Goodwill Car Donations. During the five years he’s been with the organization, Jeremy has become quite an expert in the field and has handled tens of thousands of donated vehicles. So we’re excited to have the opportunity to talk with him about donating your car as a charitable gift for your taxes and the planet too…

The term hybrid is one of the hottest buzz words to enter the English lexicon. In our global economy and an ever-growing awareness of the limitations of our resources, people everywhere are concerned about how we can maintain our lifestyles into the future. There is a plethora of curiosity, enthusiasm and confusion surrounding this term as we face high gas prices and a bleak forecast for our natural environment. Our lifestyles are being threatened, and so people all over the world look to the hybrid car as a potential solution, allowing us to continue speeding across our lands and living our lives of convenience. With all these concerns riding on the success of new technology, it is no wonder that people want to know, in simple terms, how do hybrid cars work…

Hybrid cars use a combination of fuel and stored electrical power (in a battery) to optimize fuel consumption and help reduce emissions. They can be seen as a stepping stone between fuel-based cars and electric automobiles. What many consumers, as well as owners of hybrid automobiles don’t realize, is that it’s possible to purchase a kit that will turn your hybrid into a plug-in hybrid automobile. In other words, into an electric vehicle. The problem with these kits is that they currently are only available on the black market, and as such they will invalidate your warranty if you install them. They are also better suited to certain hybrid automobile models than to others…