[melgish]

My wife sent me this link...

http://www.priups.com/

 

[finman]

link

Very cool! I can't imagine working with the HV battery for "experimentation", but I'm glad someone else is curious...and willing.

There's another link somewhere online that shows a Cali company that is hooking up power from the Prius to your home via an interface you install on the side of your house and some equipment on the Prius. A rolling driveable generator. Now that seems to be 'moving forward' (to quote the current Toyota ads).

How soon 'till your car is your ONLY source of power, meaning after the day is done, drive home and power the TV and stove, etc.?

'Course, getting off the grid is not what utility companies want, but , hey, big oil would love ya...

 

[ymmv]

I'd use my Prius as a UPS (wouldn't help my fridge much if the power goes out while we're commuting or at the beach for the weekend ... ) but I'd still need the trusty (and very quiet) Honda EV3000is which also comes with me to the race track (for everything from portable air-conditioning to power-tools, air-compressor etc. etc.) so even it might not be there when the next tree falls and takes out the above-ground power lines. (side note: why doesn't the government put all new power-lines underground and gradually move all above-ground lines undertground as they variously dig up every road in my neighborhood anyway?)


There's a relatively famous "futurist" who, decades ago, predicted that energy-efficiency in personal transport would overtake (pun) government-provided energy sources -- in a sense, moving to a communal energy network.

Coal is the most costly, most environmentally dangerous source of electricity and represents the single biggest source of green-house gas emissions. Time to think about at least going to alternative non-renewable sources until safe nuclear (happening in Australia, I hear) or other planetary systems (heat, wind, wave) or solar etc. comes along.

If we moved to communal energy grid generation, people would store energy on "the grid" and generate it from their own home and car(s) as needed.

Some of this happens today when householders "sell" electricity back to the electricity providers and the government subsidizes the cost of installing the solar PV cells at least in California.