Are you a Floridian and have been looking at converting your Prius into a plug-in (PHEV)? Well, today may be your lucky day, especially if you live in South Florida. The Department of Energy has approved the state of Florida's plan to use $500,000 of federal stimulus funds to offer 100 people a $5,000 tax credit in exchange for converting their Prius.

I usually don't dabble in celebrity news because, frankly, there's so much of it when it comes to the Prius. But when I saw that Demi Moore had gotten a 2010 Prius for her birthday, I decided to post it for a couple of reasons:

... at least in Japan. According to a Toyota Japan press release, the details of the leases should be finalized by the end of November, with deliveries of those highly sought after Prius PHEVs beginning in mid-December and continuing onward until the country's 200 units are all gone.

Let's take a moment to applaud the fine piece of engineering that is the Ford Fusion Hybrid. Congrats to Ford for putting together a great car.

2010 Motor Trend Car of the Year: Ford Fusion

Looks like Toyota's $0.05 solution to fixing the "sudden acceleration" issue with many of their models, including the 2004-2009 Prius, does not quite fly with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). According to a report in Reuters, Toyota is meeting the US government's demands to replace gas pedals in all effected models.

Would you like fries with that? Some pretty reputable news sources are running with a story that Toyota will be releasing a super-sized Prius by the end of 2010. The Prius XL will be in the form of a wagon or small SUV - probably similar to the size of what the RAV4 used to be. The Prius XL will also be the first hybrid that Toyota produces with a lithium-ion battery pack in place of the NiMH pack used in the 2010 (and previous) Prius.

As a South Carolina football fan and hater of all things Tennessee orange and white, this story is just too good to pass up commenting on. Earlier this week 3 Tennessee football players were arrested in connection to an attempted armed robbery. The details of the attempted robbery don't really matter to Prius enthusiasts, save one: their getaway car was a 2010 Toyota Prius.

My guess is that they were hoping to use the EV mode to evade the cops.

Have you ever bought a new car and had trouble sleeping the first night? It's kind of a surreal story, but PriusChat forum user R2Pre2 shared the details of her first 24 hours of Prius ownership: She bought her new 2010 Prius, brought it home, had it stolen by thieves, and then retrieved by the police thanks to the Safety Connect feature installed in her package V Prius.

And here we are, another Monday morning upon us! For most of the country, Fall is in full swing and we're getting to the end of leaf season. I found this wonderful photo posted on Flickr by Chris Devers of his 2010 Prius overlooking the city of Boston.

Did you take your 2010 Prius leaf-viewing this weekend? Maybe threw in some of those new Weathertech all-weather mats in your car since Toyota isn't selling their own?

Jason Emery over on FireEngineering.com put together a very thorough and interesting article on how to prepare the 2010 Prius for vehicle extrication in the unfortunate event that it may be needed. This isn't a "OMG! Don't touch a hybrid because you WILL DIE!" kind of article. In fact, it's totally the opposite.

The article takes an in-depth look at how to make the Prius as safe as possible while responding to an emergency situation. It even goes into how to remove the roof off of a 2010 Prius with a solar panel.