What's hot right now is running your diesel on a mixture of used veggie oil and diesel.
Or doing the $2K conversion to mainly veggie oil. Old Mercedes diesels run perfectly on used oil. Restaurants have never been in such demand for their garbage. No problem getting rid of their oil these days. You do have to filter it before putting it in your car. I've talked to some people who are doing this, and it's much more widespread than reported in the media.

@ Priussport,
This trick is very common in Europe, although with many specific models there is no need to modify the vehicle in any way to run it on straight vegetable oil (ie no need to convert to biodiesel, and no need for tank warmers or line heaters at all, just straight into the main tank at 100% SVO and off you go).

I ran my old Astra on this in the summer months with no problems (starting is harder in the colder months, so most people, including me, switch back to diesel while a handful get the conversions done to keep running on SVO through the winter).

We have a couple of folks here at Disney who run veggie / frenchfry grease in their MB's. They get the oil for free, from the resteraunts, but they both expect to get cut off any day now. But a year or two ago? The park was GLAD that someone would take oil off their hands as it has to be disposed of (not any more now though, due to demand) as toxic waste. But as of last year, they began running the waste oils in their choo choos to fire their boilers.

Kind of a funny thought isn't it? The trains go by, with the aroma of frenchfrys? Actually, it just smells generic.

maybe start a groupbuy for this 4995 pack and get it down to..? 3850?

This is great news! Still gives me hope in pursuing a gently used Prius after the Gen III hits. A group buy would be an option for all of us to consider. Definitely something worth pursuing. Veggie oiled Choo choos haha.

George's costs were at $5000 because he did the labor himself. At a Milwaukee group meet he handed out flyers from the company where he got the kit and it was over $6000 when you throw in labor.

from Plug-In Supply Inc of Petaluma California

San Jose, July 21, 2008 – Plug-In Supply, Inc. unveiled the world’s first Prius Conversion System priced at $4995.

Problem with that is an 80s diesel on SVO may be low carbon, but its incredibly dirty in pretty much every other sense. From the data I've seen BD reduces emissions by ~1/2 (other than NOx) but SVO has no appreciable emissions reduction (other than maybe sulfur). Add to that you can't run SVO in most newer cleaner diesels, you generally have to run it in the oldest (and consequently dirtiest) models.

For example the 1989 190d, one of the smallest Mercedes diesels stacks up against a 2006 Jetta Tdi like this:

1989 Mercedes 190d vs. 2006 Jetta Tdi
CO: 1.2 vs. 0.04 (30X or 2900% higher)
NOx: 0.74 vs. 0.31 (2.4X or 139% higher)
HC: 0.3 vs. 0.0198 (15.2X or 1451% higher)
PM: 0.14 vs. 0.046 (3X or 205% higher)

And personally I consider the '06 Jetta a pretty dirty car. Here's the 190d versus the Prius:

1989 Mercedes 190d vs. 2004+ Prius
CO: 1.2 vs. 0.1 (12X or 1100% higher)
NOx: 0.74 vs. 0.01 (74X or 7300% higher)
HC: 0.3 vs. 0.009 (33.3X or 3233% higher)
PM: 0.14 vs. 0 (???? (>14X) higher)

I'm all for reducing CO2 emissions and petroleum consumption, but for me 12-74 times more air pollution is not a good trade. It may cost more, but I still see a plugin conversion charged on renewable energy as a much better path to zero carbon emissions w/o the air quality penalty. Its also a much more scalable solution. There are only so many gallons of fry grease and so many old mercedes diesels available. After that virgin biofuels become much more expensive and polluting, and less carbon neutral compared to electrics run on renewables.

Rob

I think Robb's kit has a lot going for it. Their tilt up battery box that lets you at the spare tire is very nice, the price is getting better, and if they are really getting 800 cycles out of their lead acid pack thats a big step forward. Li-ion upgrade path is obviously a nice plus as well.

Rob

If you have a can-view with the relays it should integrate fine. Otherwise you would have to send Norm your can-view and have him install the parts or you could buy and install the parts your self if your good with a soldering iron.

anyone know details about the 52 mph EV mode? how they hack it?

that is what i want to know.. how did they get the EV mode to 52mph?? and why do you have to shut the car off and back on to get it out of that mode??

They simulate and "out of gas" experience for the car. The car thinks its out of gas and must be shut down to exit that mode. If you don't shut down the engine will not come back on even if you still have gas.

wait a minute do you mean to say they can only be recharged 800 times?

as in 800 days then? because you'd probably charge each night

Thats correct. If you discharged and recharged once a day the battery would last about 800 days.

that means its definitely not worth it for me and I drive an average of 90 miles a day

at that rate it takes a bit over 3 years to make 5k back (assuming gas is 4.40, increasing it to 5.50 makes it ~2.8 years)

at 1 charge/day thats 2.5 years so basically its a lose lose situation here.

(not to mention the above analysis doesnt take into account the cost of electricity to recharge)

The only benefit I see is lower emissions.

I consider $4995 a lot of money to effectively convert a Prius into a coal-burning vehicle.

Don't forget that roughly half of all electricity in the USA is generated by coal-fired power stations, about as much as from all other sources of power combined.

Coal causes more CO2 output per kWh than any other source of power.

The situation would be very different of course if most power was generated from wind, solar, geothermal, hydro or other renewable and clean sources, but right now (and certainly within the lifetime of an 800 charge cycles battery) that is not the case.