Inside the Enova Hawaii garage. Click to enter gallery.

Enova Systems, based in Torrance, California, is known for converting heavy-duty vans and buses to using fuel cell and hybrid powertrains (read previous ABG stories on Enova). In Hawaii, the Enova branch is also working on all-electric conversions. The Honolulu garage does have three fuel cell vehicles (running 20kWh and 65kWh fuel cells that power an airplane tug and a step van), but when I met with Todd Martin, manager of the Hawaii office, we discussed the company's all-electric systems.

The Enova location in Honolulu is also home to one of Hawaii's Posi-charge stations, which can quickly charge an EV, and a sign outside reads "HCATT - Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies."

Martin walked me around the garage and explained the hows and whys of the vehicles Enova is converting. One project Martin was working on when we met in November was taking the original engine out of a delivery van and comparing the fuel economy of a new diesel-engine parallel hybrid drive train to the original. Over in a corner of the garage sits a bit of Hawaii EV history: a Geo Prizm that was the first EV registered in Hawaii in recent times . When you look through the gallery of photos that accompany this post, you'll see a license plate that reads "Electric Vehicle 1." That's the car, and it's the vehicle Martin and I started talking about...



Read our interview after the jump and check out part one of the Alt Fuel Hawaii series here. Check back tomorrow Click here for the wonders of the Bio-Beetle on Maui.

I'm currently in sunny Hawaii doing research on a book. Having come from Michigan, where gas prices had dropped down to $2.20 a gallon or so before I left, the $3 a gallon signs up at all the local stations here reminded me that transportation fuel is a big cost here in "paradise". Walking around the other day, I had the most obvious brainstorm: Hawaii is the ideal testing ground for electric vehicles. Seriously. Electric car companies should be falling over each other to release EVs here, and the major automakers shouldn't be far behind. You can read why after the jump.