The Oasis truck battery might just be cheap enough to build your own plugin hybrid from a used economy car.

37 wh/kg. Compared to around 70 wh/kg for Nimh.  Maybe 120 bucks per battery?  Around 1.2 kwh of power?

350 pounds, 5 of these 70 pound batteries would be equivalent to a gallon of gas.   

Since Nimh can't be had by the public, except in a vehicle.  And lithium batteries are way too expensive. This is the best battery do-it-yourselfers can afford.

So lighten your front wheel drive economy car by 300 to 500 pounds (replace most of the metal body with fiberglass?), add these batteries and one used golf cart motor for each rear wheel, and you got yourself a plugin hybrid.  For about 3000 dollars in parts, and a lot of screwing around.

You would have a 35 to 45 mile range on battery power.  Not too bad, it might save 1000 bucks worth of gas per year?  If you have around a 40 mile commute between charging opportunities.  Either 20 miles one way, or 40 miles one way and a plugin at work.

The Oasis is available this summer.

A plugin hybrid bike with lithium ion would be a good idea for a first experiment though.  You only need around 200 bucks worth of the new power tool lithium ion nano tech batteries to get that 40 mile range in a power assisted bike.