« Is a horrorist worse than a terrorist?
Flight sites usability notes »

Prius as backup generator

Someday when I own a house, I’ll want a generator to provide emergency backup power in case the grid goes down for one reason or another. This page says, why spring for a slow-to-start old-fashioned generator when people like my wife and me who own Toyota Priuses or other hybrid vehicles can just hook them up as a generator? This is a really cool solution to an annoying problem. Props to the guy who thought it up.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, Jan 03, 2006 at 2:25 pm and is tagged technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 Responses to “Prius as backup generator”

  1. Jesus Ortiz Says:
    August 25th, 2006 at 2:18 am

    Now this is an excellent idea! I don’t want to void the warranty, so how can I do this? Will a DC/AC inverter plugged in to the 12V outlets work? For how long can I leave the car on in idle, could it damage the ICE?

  2. rfreebern Says:
    August 25th, 2006 at 6:53 am

    Jesus,
    You’ll have to read the web site I linked to in the post to find out how to do it. I’m no electrician, so I don’t fully understand the concept, and I can’t give you any more detail than “it can be done!”

    If you give it a try and get it working, let me know!

Leave a Reply