Do you mean this?
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070618006367&newsLang=en

Just a big ad for Toyota Prius....

The idea of a plug-in hybrid sounds cool, but will car companies listen? The electric car was pretty much killed off and this seems to be an adaption of that idea.

Colin:
It's not certain if the EV killed off, or was killed intentionally. I recommend you to see the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006)" – there are some facts which suggest EVs where an unwanted child for some companies and legislators.

Interesting! Have you seen the Solar Panels page?
http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/
Very cool :)

However, the flaw in the plan comes from the fact that most electricity comes from the national grid: the power stations thus have to generate additional power to charge the hybrid electric cars that weren't there before, hence they burn more fossil fuel, natural gas or nuclear fuel and so there is no saving on greenhouse emissions.

Let's hope the solar panels can fulfill all the power requirements for charging those cars.

If solar panels are deployed over the countries where cars use electricity, then we won't be wasting any other energy source...

the.babycub: However, even the dirtier large power plants are far more efficient at generating energy than the millions of small, inefficient internal combustion engines on the roads today. And nuclear power, which provides around 20% of US energy (AFAIK), is a *clean* energy source (IMO). Therefore, plug-in hybrids would significantly reduce fuel consumption.

http://www.google.org/recharge/ its a nice greenly PR campaign ;)

How long has Google actually used the .org domain? Last I knew it was just a placeholder page. Interesting.

Very cool on the solar panel setup, that's what more companies should be doing. -Matt

They've been using Google.org for quite some time now...
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2005-04-17.html

Google's solar panel installation produces 1.6 Megawatts of energy, very impressive for a single company installation. According to this article, Google produces enough energy "to light 1200 homes." This equals out to about 30% of Google's power needs at their company headquarters.

Article here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/17/BUGQCLQHCQ1.DTL&type=business

It's a good move for them. Power is only going to get more expensive, and they should pay themselves off in energy saved in 5 to 10 years.

The cars, I'm assuming, fit in with this project in that they will be used to store energy from the solar panel array. The idea that plug-in cars "burn more energy" than regular cars is bunk for the following reasons:

1. Energy conversion from stored electricity to motion is more efficient than burning gasoline to move pistons to create motion.
2. The cost of moving electricity on a grid is negligible compared to the cost of refinining crude oil to gasoline and trucking it cross-country to your local gas station.
3. Plug in cars can be used to feed electricity back on to the grid. Cars charge at night when demand is low and feed electricity back on to the grid during peak demand. California is currently working on this technology.