Y'all seen these plug in hybrid cars?

[Downtown Hound]

For the bargain price of about the cost a small brand new car, you can convert your current Toyota Prius to a plug in battery and give it way more electrical juice than it would normally have. They say possibly over 100 MPG. Not bad. If you fail to charge the battery at night then it will function as a regular Prius, with regenerative braking and occasionally gasoline charging the battery.

The $12,000 price tag is a little steep, but if we go to war against Iran, it will probably pay for itself in say, about two weeks. As soon as the warranty expires on my 6 month old Prius, I might consider something like this.

http://www.edrivesystems.com

[benburch]

1. You can do this yourself for a whole lot less.

The instructions are on the various Prius modification sites.

[Downtown Hound]

5. Really?

Do you have any links to these sites?

[Beaverhausen]

7. Try Prius Chat

http://priuschat.com/

[Downtown Hound]

12. Cool! Thank you!

[benburch]

8. Good article here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid_electric_vehicle

and here is a blog

http://alteng.blogspot.com/2005/07/making-plug-for-hybrids.html

And there are others.

Google "Prius Battery Modification"

[Downtown Hound]

13. Schweet! Thanks for the info!

[Ksec]

2. Not sure but

using all that electricity to charge it up at night , may take away yer savings on gas?

[Downtown Hound]

4. Nah

If you're charging it up at night you're off peak hours (assuming you don't plug it in right as you get home) and though it might jack your bill up some, the price of gas is so high now that you would still save a lot more than you spent.

[htuttle]

6. Probably not

I've been keeping an eye on these electric 'maxi-scooters' just hitting the US:
http://www.vectrixusa.com/index2.html

In the UK, it says it only costs about £0.50 to charge it 80% (68 mile range). Takes about two hours.

Sure, a fully electric Prius would have many more batteries, but it's still bound to cost less than gas.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. Where I live, a lot of parking lots have plugins for engine heaters

so people can start their cars after leaving them parked for several hours. I imagine lotsa people would just hijack a little battery juice whenever they park in one of those places.

[Justice Is Comin]

3. I just saw

their new model, the Yaris over the weekend.

$12,000 ...pretty decent looking and 39 city--43 highway.

I think they got a real winner there.

[Selatius]

9. Yeah, good price tag, nice styling, very good move for Toyota

American executives at Ford and GM should go back to business school and learn from their mistakes.

[Downtown Hound]

11. That looks pretty stylish for $12,000

Me thinks I might do the Prius modification myself. Save that money for solar panels.

And you're right about Ford and GM. I feel no pity for them whatsoever. All through the 90's they kept saying that hybrid cars weren't cost effective and yadda yadda ya. Well, the Prius is now the number one selling car in America. Oops.

[Ksec]

10. I'm definitely considering a hybrid

And Ill bet most people paying these outlandish gas prices are, also. Ive also been thinking about a motorcycle for the summer. I told my wife a nice Harley would save us lots o money. She just gave me that look..like how stupid do I look ?