the EMF fields found near your cellphone and portable radios are higher than the prius in almost every way.

In the late 80, it was Waterbed Heaters and Electric Blankets.

Pure rubbish, you PC monitor emits much higher levels of radiation! Some jackass sold his car based on some psudeo science!

Curious, we just had a long discussion of this recently, yet the search function returns no results for "EMF".

Anyway, there were multiple references to published studies from the last 20 years showing no clear evidence of biological effects from weak, low frequency fields such as those present inside a Prius. "no clear evidence" here means "orders of magnitude less dangerous" than things like exposure to Sunlight, second-hand cigarette smoke or Diesel exhaust, being overweight, driving without a seatbelt, and lots of other stuff.

Oi, here we go again. First the Prius was "smoke and mirrors," then a pseudo-marketing company claimed a Hummer was cheaper to own, now we have these invisible rays zapping us

Too early in the day for a stiff drink, but I need one right now. Hmmm, wonder what all that drinking is doing to my liver ..... ?

What else in the area of scare tactics? Oh right, apparently little kids are blundering into hybrid cars because they are "too quiet"

Magnetic flux is proportional to current... so unless you're operating on electric only, there is not much flux b/c there is not much current (generally) coming from the battery. Most of the prius current comes from MG1 going to MG2, so the flux is contained in the engine bay along w/ the high-frequency magnetism coming from the DC-AC inverter.

You'd be worse-off sleeping with a heating pad all of the time. Anyone work near induction furnaces? Now that's some non-ionizing radiation to worry about.

The magnetic fields generated by the cars' systems are -MUCH- lower than the earths magnetic field. So if you're worried, better leave the earth. Bye!!

If you wear a tinfoil hat and aluminum underwear you should be okay. I wouldn't drive any distance without protection.

Tom

Would this explain all the times I've hopped in my Prius and woken up in a Wal-Mart parking lot with hatch full of chewing gum and a thank-you note from some chick named Lonnie? 'Cause that was kind of fun the first time but gets old as soon as Ebay is so saturated with Wrigley's that I can't make my money back anymore. I also have this new **OOAAAHHHGH** twitch. It's ok, I'm sure others will start posting about it in the technical forum with a link to the TSB. More duct tape in the mean time...

For those worried about EMF, I've got a Q-Ray bracelet to sell you.

Quoting from the article
"Neysa Linzer, 58, says that since she bought her Honda Civic Hybrid her blood pressure has increased and that she has fallen asleep at the wheel 3 times. She believes her hybrid is causing her health problems, "I never had a sleepiness problem before," she said. She requested that Honda provide her with shielding material to protect her from the fields but Honda declined."

Sounds to me like Obstructive Sleep Apnoea, which is a much more commoner cause of daytime somnolence, than the supposed EMF. No input from her physician either.

She should have bought a Prius, the Honda is so boring it's sending her to sleep. The blood pressure is caused by having to live with her mistakes.

Hi Tom,

I think nickel foil would work much better for those magnetic fields. I have seen situations where the fields from a power supply transmformer will go right through an aluminum cabinet of another piece of test equiment and disrupt low power circuits in that other piece of equipement.

So you think we need to use mu metal shielding? I wonder if we have to worry about ionizing radiation too? Now I'm really getting worried.

When I worked with MRI designs, we would use big plates of mu metal to completely line the suites. We had to keep out the RF and the magnetic fields. Without the shielding you could see radio stations in the image: "What's that spot on your liver? Oh, I think it's WKRP."

Tom

Actually, I have it on good authority that the EMF radiation causes you to post that gas will drop to $2.50/gallon....

Where's that guy who said he planned to spend thousands lining his Prius with mu metal? I wonder how that worked out for him.

Maybe she kept falling asleep because the Hybrid was too quiet and her blood pressure has increased because of the increase in aggressive drivers!

I'd go with the tinfoil. Those UFO people use it and it works well for them! If it ain't broke don't fix it!:alien:

Okay, enough with the jokes already. Is there any scientific data to either support or debunk the story that EMFs given off in a Prius are dangeous to my health? I see where some company is marketing silicon disks the size of saucers to fit over the modules of the batteries at $65 each. So what's the deal with that?