A Prius can power your home in a snowstorm

**ffelknirznarf** · 01-02-2009, 09:25 PM

A Prius can power your home in a snowstorm | Yahoo! Green

I found this interesting. Granted a generator would probably work better. He used his Prius and about 5 gallons of gas to power his house for 3 days.

**ktoddcyclones** · 01-02-2009, 09:35 PM

That's pretty smart.

**superdorf** · 01-02-2009, 10:03 PM

So... if you ran your own car on idle for 3 days, how much fuel would it use?

**ffelknirznarf** · 01-02-2009, 11:27 PM

I saw somewhere a Buick Lesabre uses about 1/8 of a gallon idiling for 10 minutes. I don't have any idea if that is typical. So I suspect you would run out of gas in most cars after a day.

**Wesley** · 01-02-2009, 11:29 PM

So you need to buy a $25k generator for a 3 day outage...maybe the 2010 Volt may have the same feature.

**Phaedrus** · 01-03-2009, 06:26 AM

Originally Posted by Wesley

So you need to buy a $25k generator for a 3 day outage...maybe the 2010 Volt may have the same feature.

So, the Prius isn't just a heavy, overpriced economy car, it's a heavy, overpriced generator as well?

An Echo got the same gas mileage as a Prius at $11,000. For the same money, you can get a darned nice car that gets just a couple mpg less and it's not a POS.

**TykeClone** · 01-03-2009, 10:42 AM

Speaking of generators, how many here actually have their house wired to use one?

I've had a transfer switch installed that will allow me to power my furnace, freezer, refrigerator, and my living room with my (non-prius) generator. This is a manual operation (I didn't spring for the auto transfer switch+generator), but it works well.

**Bubbahotep** · 01-03-2009, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by Phaedrus

So, the Prius isn't just a heavy, overpriced economy car, it's a heavy, overpriced generator as well?

An Echo got the same gas mileage as a Prius at $11,000. For the same money, you can get a darned nice car that gets just a couple mpg less and it's not a POS.

True, but I wouldn't be caught dead in an echo either

**HOTDON** · 01-03-2009, 11:07 AM

That can't be great for the engine. The drivetrain is obviously different than most other vehicles, but cars are built to move. Doesn't matter much when the safety/comfort of your family is depending on it, but I'm curious about whether 3 days of cycling would have any adverse effects.