I'm tempted to buy a $14,500 Slate pickup.

I see.

I've followed a few of those, but their prices seem to have increased just as much as the rest of the used car market. I remember just 15 years ago seeing some of those vehicles auction off for not much more than $1,000, sometimes even less than that. Now you can't seem to get those same kinds of vehicles for under $10,000 at those auctions.

Yeah! I was very tempted to make a range extender for my Leaf when I had it. I had all sorts of ideas, from used cells to solar panel trailers. And I'm pretty good at math, including accounting for things like aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance. It all made sense. But man, if you ever post online that you're going to buy a bunch of solar panels and charge an EV with them, you sure get a lot of negative feedback about how it will never work, how you'll fry yourself, and how it'll make the world start turning backwards on its axis.

I don't know what to do yet with the Prius as most of the components for a neighborhood electric vehicle are already there. All I'd need is to put together a bigger battery, add a charger, also figure out how I'm going to keep it balanced and protected from heat and cold, and the spoof then system into accepting the battery for continuous power and keep the engine off.