I am moving into my 2012 Prius hybrid to save money in Anchorage Alaska. Rent is ridiculous. My long term goal is to save up for a tiny plot of land and build a tiny house. My short term goal is to be living out of my car in a month. So I need to figure out how I am going to accommodate my power needs. I want to be able to run and charge my computer, cell phone and accessories, a small refrigerator, a small space heater, a electrical blanket, additional lighting, my dog’s e-collar, occasionally run an induction stove top and an air fryer, and in a pinch be able to use my hair dressing tools such as my hair dryer or curling iron. I need to look professional at work and that I am not living out of my car! I am wondering what is the best solution for me. I am not to savvy when it comes to electrical things. I am definitely going to seek out some physical help in setting up whatever system I decide to go with so I don’t hurt myself or the car. All I want from you all is direction… what path should I purse? 1) Buy a power bank such as a goal zero 2) Get an inverter and hook it up to the 12v battery in the trunk. If this is the best option, what is the largest size inverter that I can use safely? I am pretty sure my Prius is a gen 3. 3) Set up an additional 12v battery with an inverter. I saw a YouTube short video where a guy did this with an optima yellow top car battery along with a 2000w inverter. Is there a better battery that I could get for this application? 4) I think this may be a long shot and if not the most expensive direction to purse. But like I said I am naive when it comes to all things electrical. Maybe this would be a best solution for my long term needs? Is there a way to tap directly into the hybrid battery without causing damage? Is this what PlugOut Power did? If I could find a person to help me install system like this, would this be cheaper than buying a goal zero? I know all these options have been discussed here in various different post in all sorts of locations on this site. To be frank, I am on information overload trying to find answers to my questions. So any advice even if it is just to point me to an archived discussion would be appreciated. Keightley
Isn’t Alaska really cold? That’s a lot of electrical demand you are wanting. Maybe you should wait until spring to do this temporary live in car plan? I guess if you leave the car running with the climate control at a reasonable temperature, it can be possible. Even then the power demands you are wanting would still need a household outlet. Maybe you’ll need to get rid of the air fryer, electric blanket, refrigerator, curling iron, hair dryers, cook top etc
It is not likely that I would use all those gadgets all at once! Yes it is cold in the winters here. I will have to make sure the car warms up with gas before doing anything really demanding on the electrical system like making dinner with an air fryer. During the day I will either be at coffee shop or library working off my laptop, at the gym, or at work. So when I am not with the car, it will obviously be off. But at night I would use the climate control feature to keep it a toasty 50 to 60 degrees. I’ve seen videos of people using a small electric heater connected to an ambient temperature sensor that turns the heater on and off accordingly. This heating setup does not seem to drain the batteries as much requiring the car to turn on frequently in the night thereby using very little gas. So I don’t think it will be that bad. Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong.
Starting below -25c(-13F) your engine will be cycling on/off every 30 sec to maintain heat, eventually the engine will be on longer than it is off. Covering the grill will reduce that only a couple of seconds per cycle but not much. A thick window insulation inside and a car cover with (strategic fresh air ventilation) might help the engine and cabin keep warm. But you have to make sure your car is pointed towards the wind so the exhaust blows away from the back of the car. If you can, renting a room will be much cheaper safer practical...even the smallest room is better than your car. This from someone who occasionally car camp a couple of days when travelling alone. Talk to friends you trust if they are willing to rent one of their rooms to you. We had a friend who considered living in her car but rented a room with us for 14 years. To this day her mailing address is still our house, and she still house sits and feed our cat whenever we are on vacation.
Those should be pretty easy. If they all have USB-C PD in these days, you could just get a nice 12-volt multi-output PD brick to wire in; monoprice.com is a place I would check. also easy, using the refrigerant-cycle (not thermoelectric) ones that can end up drawing less than 12 watts on average, once they are maintaining temperature. (More like 72 watts when first plugged in, until the temperature is on target.) Here's the thread: What car fridge 12v would you recommend? | PriusChat Something to think about, though: I haven't seen one of those that is capable of raising temperature to maintain a target temperature in the fridge-storage range. Should be fine all the while you are in the car and living there, as you'll have the car temperature comfortable for you. But the fridge may have no way to avoid becoming a freezer when you are away from your car. Might be an interesting mod if you are the tinkering sort. Let the car do that part. It can give you 5300 watts of heat while doing other things with the engine, like recharging from your electric usage. Trying to rig anything else to give you a credible amount of heating would swell your power budget to impractical dimensions. Also don't overlook the seat heaters, if your car has them. Here's a relevant thread: on hunkering, Gen 3 style | PriusChat A nice addition. I found a nice 12-volt one around 40 or 48 watts. Easy on the power budget, and lets you set the car's thermostat on its lowest setting (65℉ in US cars; the next lower setting is "LO", which prevents it ever using heat). I had to shop around a bit to find one that doesn't turn itself off after a certain time. I think that's a feature the safety regulators call for, to make sure you don't fall asleep and wake up with burns. I found it annoying on long drives, though, where I'd be comfortable, and then wondering why I wasn't comfortable anymore, and then remembering to reach and push the button again, over and over. As soon as that one stopped working I shopped around for one without that 'feature'. (Not sure how I was able to find one, if the feature is something safety regulators call for, but somehow I did.) You can also find 12-volt heated gloves (around 22 watts or so, total IIRC, not per-hand). Motorcycling-gear businesses sell them. Likewise footies. My gloves have a metal grommet in each glove where the power cord goes in through the lining. The gloves mostly feel just comfortably warm (the designers seem to have chosen 22 watts just about right), but I can end up with nice grommet-shaped burns on the backs of my wrists. I keep thinking "I should sew little pieces of fabric over those grommets" and I keep not doing it. That's a thing about most electric blankets and other electric clothing: they're not really temperature-regulated. So many watts go in and they get as hot as they get. The blanket has a heat wire looped back and forth through it. There's a fuse somewhere, and a few thermal protective switches here and there along the loop (you can feel the extra lumps). But with use there can come to be hot spots where the wire has bunched up, that might burn you while you sleep, maybe even in a worst case melt or ignite something. A newer approach (I have one at home) involves a blanket or mattress pad with tubes of water running through it. Electric heat and a small pump are in a little self-contained unit the tubes connect to, and it regulates the water temperature to a target you select, so the blanket or pad can't ever get hotter than that. It's closer to a 400-watt load, by nameplate, when heating, but, like the fridge, once it reaches target temperature it averages just a fraction of that to maintain it. To use one in a cold climate, and have it not freeze when you're away from the car, would require using something like RV antifreeze instead of water, and the manual for mine sternly warns against using anything besides straight water, so someone might want to research what actual risks might be posed by an antifreeze solution passing through the heater and pump. It's an idea I kind of like, but haven't pinned down what the risks might be. aquabedwarmer.com is one supplier. Recent versions of such systems are able to cool the water as well as heat it, for use in summer as well. The only such systems I've seen are 120 VAC input, so you'd end up plugging them into an inverter; I don't know of any made for direct 12 VDC supply. Should all be easy. LEDs are so efficient you should be able to light it up like a stadium with minimal effect on the budget. Induction plate, air fryer, hair dryer, those are the biggies. Each of those by itself is pretty much at the limit of what you can get from the car's DC/DC converter, using a 12-volt-input inverter. But of course you'll only use them for short bursts. I've found an Instant Pot to be a super-versatile thing to have around, and I was able to buy one of their 3-quart models that uses only 700 watts, rather than the 1100 of their larger models. 700 is easy to fit in a power budget. This might be the nicest way to handle your large, intermittent loads like the induction plate, air fryer, or hair dryer. You could be steadily charging it from the car all the time, and it could supply your high-power loads for as long as you use them. This is probably worth doing for the convenience, even if it doesn't end up being the whole answer. Mine is 1000 watts, a commonly-available and inexpensive size, and around the most you can count on continuously from the car's DC/DC converter (assuming most of the car's own heavier electrical loads are off at the time). It's not unheard of to up that to a 1500 or even 2000-watt nameplate, if you can get one of those as cheaply, and might allow your brief uses of the hair dryer or air fryer without the inverter complaining and turning off. You have to understand you won't be getting that much continuously from the car though. That's not a lot different from rolling your own power bank, and it might have been more popular back before 'power bank' became such a commonly-available product type in its own right. These days, I would wonder if you can roll your own and beat the price, convenience, and outside-the-car portability of an off-the-shelf power bank. The thread for that is here: Electric power from a hybrid, connecting inverter to the high-voltage system | PriusChat You can get around 3000 watts continuous from your Prius that way, but as you've guessed, the products are harder to find and have been expensive, and it's a more-specialized installation that fewer people will be able to help with (even if you manage to find one of those inverters on resale for cheap, which sometimes happens). I didn't see anything in your power budget that made me think you would need to pursue that. One last question: are you physically very limber and flexible? You'll need to be, to move around inside a Prius from sleeping to cooking to driving to hairstyling and all, especially once it is packed with all of the things you're likely going to have in there with you.
Have you thought about getting a small pop-up camper instead and pulling it behind the Prius? With a small generator you would be set. I bet you could find a used one for a nice price. You could stay in it on your plot of land while building the new house. Also look into campgrounds with hookups like electrical and water. You may end up saving more money for a month than trying to buy specialized equipment in rigging up the car (not to mention the cost/wear of your engine use). Plus a lot of those would have access to bathrooms/showers/etc.
i admire your courage! consider that the engine will be doing a ton of cycling to keep the battery at the minimum state of charge, and any effect that might have on the egr system. maybe none, idk. all the best with your plans, i hope you find that piece of land someday!
1. anything with a heating element is going to draw a lot of current - likely to pop fuses in your car. 2. I'd rethink the power bank since you can remove it from the car and recharge it any where. The problem with an inverter is your small battery, even with an aux. deep cycle battery - how are you going to recharge it if it gets too low? I'm not even taking the cold into considerations, because the colder it gets, the lazier the battery is going to get. A power bank is an easy solution, so that you can drag it inside with you to recharge - that also keeps the batteries warm. I don't believe the price differential between the two are excessive; if your budgeting a 1.5KW-2KW unit - that's what your going to need to run a coffee pot or hot plate. https://www.ebay.com/itm/376725842559?_skw=bluetti+refurbished&itmmeta=01KBJYK1AWFGGNZ6BTAT2S6NH4&hash=item57b69c2a7f:g:J9EAAeSwuXJpEpIw&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA0FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1dcXZwNqKcuXqzOG%2B9faD%2FWyekmDg%2F3%2B26pRrPeVwqFhl35G42ldLKwNhPjKLuJgG7b8nxHxDg0BMd3F7mL2tPazqKEvRInkC4eZdI%2BPX5UwyaFejgI1xQDrX05yQTPq1DUeYebmYSoEfagHspTjspeMEvyYLc1%2FKghyk8qWLlymvzw%2BGyjL3pUmB1FhDS6%2BY4gjxuMxJI4JsMQ3moYccUNbLuWyyZOrlIibcsvI2Zdq%2FbP96MP8suTKHqAUCFPO2Y%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR5KWzN7cZg 3. personnal grooming stuff can be done in the gym - try not to do that in your car, since it screams living in your car. 4. Alaskan winter, you don't need a refrigerator just a cheap cooler to keep cold things from freezing while your away from the car and cool while your in the car. 5. a cheap electric blanket plugged into your power bank should keep you toasty along with a zero degree sleeping bag with a cover blanket just in case it gets really chilly. 6. dump the induction cook top; use one of those plug-in saucepans (all-in-one - less cleaning and clutter). I believe their current draw less than 800 watts. You'll also need to look at your air fryer too. A microwave is more efficient way of heating things. https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/roadpro-12-volt-portable-saucepan-12v-pot-with-non-stick-surface-black Amazon.com : cooking pot electric You should probably outfit your car and spend a few night in it to see if it's doable in an Alaskan winter. If you can find a live outlet to plug into your space heater should work; but your metal car is pretty much an ice box with very little insulation. You'll need to keep at least one of your windows down about 1/8 to 1/4 inch so you don't asphyxiate yourself. Good Luck...... also look at just renting a room; it beats freezing to death....
I live in the Anchorage Matanuska-Sustina area. Temperatures in the winter rarely get that low in the winter. You will, however, see those temperatures further up north and I have no intentions to go there this winter. If you superimpose Alaska on a map of the continental US, you will see that it takes up a third of the US. So think of all the climate ranges that covers. Villages and towns along the coast will see more temperate climates than those in the interior. Fairbanks which is almost in the center of the state can see temperatures in the 100s in the summers to temperatures well below -25 in the winter.
I think you are kidding yourself or us thinking a Prius in Alaska winters will work. Plus take care of a dog? Heat is your biggest problem and is even a life threatening concern. You will end up running the engine almost continuously burning gas pretty fast. Even without 1500 watts going to other needs. If the engine runs out of gas or fails (cooling system and head gaskets are at the top of the list) all "savings" will disappear. Remember 1500w is one hair dryer worth of power. A Prius has virtually no insulation anywhere. Would you live in a trailer without insulation? A direct high voltage battery setup costs many thousands and takes up much of the hatch space. Fine if you are trying to backup a home furnace blower and a refrigerator during a power outage; not reasonable for living in the car. Even a 1500w inverter takes expertise to install so that it does not kill your life support module (eg the main 12v battery). Get a room or several roommates.
Thank you for the well wishes Biomed. I am beginning to think that starting out in my car living adventure that an inverter would be the cheapest and space saving way to go. As far as draining the 12v battery, that would only happen if I tried to use an high watt electrical gadget fwithout the engine being on. With the car on, the hybrid battery will recharge the 12v battery when it gets low. At least, that is how understand how it works. And if I do find myself in a situation in which I have drained the 13v battery, I do have a jumpstart. I’ve used it once on the Prius already. Using hair tools would just be done in an emergency. Honestly… I can think of what situation that could warrant an emergency but one never knows. I do plan on getting a gym membership. I’m actually hoping that parking at night in the gym’s parking lot might be an option. . We have a few gyms that are open 24/7. That power bank that you linked is a great price! I just wish they shipped to Alaska. Unfortunately one cannot buy power banks online due to shipping restrictions. Something about the risk of fire on airplane. Anyone willing to ship me one? A private person can pack it in a way that the shipping carriers would not know it is a battery. The joys of living in Alaska! The struggle is very real folks. This is an absolutely awesome place to live if you can handle the expense, social isolation, winter darkness, and cold temperatures.
My Prius does fine here in winter. Gas mileage isn’t so great in the winters isn’t so great but it is still better than the $75K trucks that most people seem to own here. My dog does pretty well winter living in a car especially with his snowsuit keeping him warm. He is with me 24/7. He already stays in the car while I am working. During my breaks, I take him potty. If his water is a bit frozen, I turn the car on to warm it up a bit. That only happens when the temps are below 15 degrees outside of the car. Insulation in the car is not as good as say a RV, but there is still some. As far as staying warm… I think I will be fine. I am planning on getting some pretty beefy winter gear. There is a company call wiggy’s that make sleeping bags rated for -60 degrees. So as long as I can keep inside of the car above 0 degrees during the night, I will be fine. Roommates is not an option for me. Finding a decent roommate situation is worse than dating. You spend 10 minutes with a person then move into their personal intimate space or vice versa they move into yours. At least with dating, you can leave instantly if they are crazy, strange, and/or horrible human being. With a roommate situation, it is much harder to extract oneself from a bad situation! I admit that I do not like living alone hence why I have a dog. There was a point in my life that I was very open to roommates. But now I have several horror stories from a roommate disappearing for weeks on end (I seriously thought she was dead somewhere), to another thinking we were friends with benefits to the point that I had to fight him off one night, to another’s boyfriend getting in bed with me thinking he had the right room in the middle of the night. During COVID, I even had to cover the roommate half of rent. So … yeah… I would rather live in my car until I am back on my financial feet than have to deal with roommate drama. So instead of saying that Prius car living can’t be done especially in winter, I would appreciate advice on how living in a car can be done relatively comfortably. My location really has nothing to do with this. I have seen some videos of people living in the northwest US living out of their car in winter. Sometimes temperatures are colder there than here in Alaska! Please and thank you.
If the feedback is not what you wanted to hear (excessive gas use, expected engine problems from high duty cycle use, no enclosure insulation, electrical limitations in function and expertise) then its your choice. If you go with an inverter, you should install a pure sine wave 1500 watt unit, running off a second deep cycle battery, wired with 2 or 4 gauge cable, connected to the car's 12v battery through a quality rv style isolator and separate fusing. See attached. I would also have a spare factory 140 amp fuse (for the car batteries 12v positive terminal) and avoid jumper cable jumps which might blow the engine fuse box's inaccessible 125a fuse. "Smart Battery Isolator" to avoid a primary 12v discharge due to excessive parasitic (standby) draw typical of inexpensive isolators
Please don't take this the wrong way, but a battery is designed to dump a lot of electrons quickly - to start a motor. Getting those electrons back into the battery is another story. You may be underestimating the time it takes for your car to recharge your car's battery and possibly an aux. battery once it's been thoroughly drained (ie. a cold night running an electric blanket for 6-8 hours). That's why plugging in the car and recharging everything for the next night will be essential - otherwise you'll have to keep the car in ready mode for 24 hours burning a bunch of gasoline. Again, you should do a few weekend practice runs and maybe a couple of weekday runs, so you can get everything "dialed-in".
