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Community Corner

Killingworth Man Tests Car of the Future

The CEO of "Green" Company Reviews a Prius Prototype.

George Keithan is a “green” guy who runs a “green” company. 

George is so “green” that when Toyota America was looking for people to test drive their new EV-option hybrid (a gas powered car with an electric plug-in option), he made the list of only 150 testers nationally. 

His 2010 metallic, light blue Prius Plug-In Hybrid will be parked in front of his business, Consulting Engineering Services, Inc., on Middle Street in the Middletown Industrial Park for only a few more days before it is returned to Toyota America. CES is a green mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering and consulting firm that also tests and rates the energy efficiency of new homes, often very large homes. 

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As president and CEO, Keithan “walks the talk.” The company has not only leased hybrid vehicles for their corporate fleet, but he and his family live in a zero-energy rated home which won recognition by Northeast Utilities. Born and raised in Middletown, Keithan now resides in Killingworth.

“I’ve leased the Lincoln, Ford and Toyota hybrids, but I keep coming back to the Prius,” he explains. “They were the first of the green vehicles. I can drive into New York City cheaper than it costs for me to take the train.”  

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Keithan’s prototype loaner is not a production model; you can’t buy it...yet. “But I have heard Toyota hopes to roll it out in the first quarter of 2012”, he says. The car looks and feels exactly like a standard Prius except for the option to plug it into a 120 volt outlet. 

Toyota gets a big bang for their testing buck out of having Keithan review the Plug-In Hybrid. 

“First, I’m Prius people; I already know what it’s like to drive a Prius. I know what it does and doesn’t do and can speak directly to the EV-option. Second, I’m an engineer. I can give Toyota America a substantive evaluation.”  

Keithan enjoys the attention the vehicle gets. 

“I’m amazed at the interest in (the car). People want to talk about it”, he says. He is often engaged in conversations at gas pumps or in parking lots. Keithan recalls sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic recently on his way to a Patriot’s football game. 

“So I’m sitting there and this guy in a Ford 150 pickup truck next to me rolls down his window and starts cheering for my car!  It really made me chuckle. That guy was either pumped for the car or pumped for the game; I wasn’t sure which.”  

He admits the Prius Plug-In Hybrid has “one big negative, and that’s the fact that it only gets between 13 to 14 miles per charge, which takes about 4 1/2 hours. It frustrates me.” He notes that many people drive between 15 to 20 miles one-way to go to work each day. “I want at least 50 miles per charge to eliminate any ‘marooning factor’ you’d get from an all-electric vehicle,” he says.  

Most cars that get 25 miles per gallon cost 16 cent per mile to operate. The regular Prius runs on only 8 cents per mile on gas alone, with the Plug-In Hybrid operating at 6 cents per mile. “And that’s at 20 cents per kilowatt hour, the highest cost for electricity in the county,” says Keithan, noting that the savings could be much greater in other parts of the country where electricity is less expensive.  

He had the privilege of test-driving an all-electric Tesla in California recently and the experience spoiled him. 

“That car gets 200 miles per charge! It was a blast to drive it with great acceleration.” Unfortunately, the Tesla’s price tag starts around $100,000. “But it’s the direction the Prius Plug-In needs to go.”

A Middletown native, Keithan grew up in the North End, attended St. John’s School and graduated from Xavier High School. He is son to the well-known former Middletown police officer and sheriff George V. Keithan, Sr., who died two years ago.  

Son George hosts an annual charity golf tournament to benefit a scholarship fund in his father’s memory for Xavier and Mercy High School students who intend to pursue a degree in engineering. The next tournament is scheduled for Friday, October 7, 2011 at Tunxis Plantation Country Club in Farmington. Registration information can be found at http://www.cesct.com/index.php/about-consulting-engineering-services/2011_ces_charity_golf_tournament.  

The Killingworth-Durham-Middlefield Patch wrote an article about the vehicle on September 2, which can be found at.

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