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AAAS annual conference:RESEARCHERS HAVE come up with the ultimate vehicle – an environmentally friendly electric car that plugs into the wall to sell power back to the electricity company.

The delights of a car that lets you get one up on the power suppliers comes via research funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal is to develop “plug-in hybrid electric vehicles” (PHEV) that not only use grid electricity to meet their power needs, but can also collect electricity from the wind or sun and then sell this back into the national electricity grid. “Cars sit most of the time,” said Prof Jeff Stein, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Michigan who heads the NSF effort.