Turn your car into a hybrid electric for $4,550

Getting the shoulda/coulda/wouldas over hybrid vehicles? Now you can convert any conveyance with 15-inch wheels or larger into an electric engine-assisted greenmobile. Danish engineer Ulrik Poulsen created these aftermarket attachments he calls the Poulsen Hybrid, and when you bolt one onto each of a car's two drive wheels, they provide the 10-15 horsepower needed for 70-85% of normal driving. The car's gasoline engine provides the other 15-30%, needed for stops, starts, and acceleration.

It'll cost you $4,550 (for the lead acid battery model) to have a pair of these power boots installed on your car, or a stiff $8,600 for the ones with lighter lithium ion batteries on board. Funny that they show a Honda Civic in these photos — that $4,550 add-on price is pretty steep, considering that a stock Civic Hybrid costs only around $2,000 more than the conventional gas-fueled Civic sedan.

By the way, you could just get a Civic Hybrid to begin with, which garners you a sweet $425 tax credit (until December 31, 2008) for its hybrid-ness, and is available in that exact same attractive blue color you see above.

Treehugger, via CrunchGear