Just like new! Except with voided warrantee.
As an engineer, I’m intrigued by projects where people mod things, particularly electronic or mechanical things, and turn them into something just crazy. Case in point, the VW Beetle with a jet engine. But although that’s a cool project, it leaves something to desired. Or rather, it leaves a gigantic carbon footprint. So what kind of mod would an earth-conscious engineer be into?
How about a mod to turn the Toyota Prius into a plug-in vehicle?
It’s a pretty cool project, but at the moment lacks practicality (you know, as opposed to a jet engine in a Beetle). First of all, you have to fork over the money for the car, then pay one-and-a-half times the cost of the car to have it converted. Although the replacement batteries can be charged via a regular old extension cord, it sounds from the article as though the car needs to turn on the gas engine at the same speed as a normal Prius but it’ll just go longer than usual on batteries at the lower speeds (so less filling up… anyone want to calculate the rate of return on that $32,000?). Currently, my Prius has no problem charging its battery during normal driving, because when braking or coasting, power is flowing back to the battery. And I’m not completely convinced that plugging your car into the wall will really lower its carbon footprint, unless your house is covered in solar panels, like that dude’s, or you live near the Hoover Dam or something.
All in all, it looks like a project I would rather work on and get paid for than pay to have done to my Prius. I’ll be totally on board when Toyota produces the vehicle that way, or I’m absolutely loaded.