Power Your Home With a Prius

If you can kill your family by running a generator indoors, you can also kill it by running a Prius in the garage.

 

my 12 kw onan has been reliable and safe for 12 years. cost me 5 large though, plus it's own annual maintenance.

 

This is much harder:

• Prius runs intermittent, not continuously like a generator
• Prius has a very efficient, catalytic converter, not like the simple muffler on a generator

We may have to agree to disagree on this because of the metrics:


Asking Google for Prius carbon monoxide deaths: Keyless Ignitions Led to Carbon Monoxide Deaths and Should Have Been Recalled, Suit Says - ABC News

According to the suit, filed in Los Angeles Federal Court on behalf of keyless car drivers Wednesday, there have been at least 13 deaths -- and a number of close calls -- from carbon monoxide poisoning after consumers failed to manually shut off their engines. The suit claims, “Reasonable drivers mistakenly believe that removing the Keyless Fob from the vehicle turns off the engine.”​

Off hand, it looks like 13 deaths to 526-808 deaths. We also know these 13 deaths included non-hybrid, START-button cars.

We've discussed this issue in the past so search should be able find the CARB database showing the carbon monoxide levels from the Prius versus other, non-hybrid 1.8L cars. My memory is the Prius has a greater than a 10-to-1 lower CO ratio.

I don't recommend ignoring the Prius exhaust as much as pointing out in the world of relative risks, the Prius is pretty low on the CO totem pole.

BTW, I recommend upgrading your smoke detector with a combination smoke-and-carbon monoxide detector. They last 10 years and the technology has improved. A cracked gas heater core or leaking exhaust could you stone cold dead and we're headed into cold weather.

Bob Wilson

 

Apologies if this has already been covered in this thread, but has anyone mentioned the capabilities of the Prime?

The Japanese version will output 100v directly from the traction battery.

That's 6kwh of power on a full battery. Without needing to run the engine.

So Toyota parts and schematics must be out there to do this, with Toyota reliability.

Not saying it's worth the bother compared with using the 12v battery, but it is a far more elegant way to use the car's capability to provide power.

Also, it is relevant to mention that some car makers are talking about building this function into their EVs to sell power back to the grid when plugged in at peak grid demand times. More battery wear? Some researchers have claimed it can make batteries last longer but don't ask me how!

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Wao! I wished such Japanese made Prime are imported in Nigeria. That would be a cool way of harnessing that for a house.

But my concern is that you'd still need a kind of stepdown transformer to bring it down to a safe voltage that would be compatible with an inverter to work with. Or, are you saying the 100V is an AC?


Dxta

 

Yes it's AC I believe. Japanese mains is 100v AC and in another thread it says the car can supply 1.5 kw max load. Note that is load and not capacity.

Not all of the 6kwh power capacity will be available without starting the engine I guess, as the car will, I assume, start the engine when power discharges to the programmed level of the hybrid proprtion of the battery. I don.t recall what proportion of the 6kwh that is.

Ps. I say 6 kwh and not 6.6 as 6kwh is the max that my car will take using the more efficient L2 charger at 240v.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I am sure that as the electric and hybrid vehicles become more mainstream the capability of using them to power things other than locomotion will be engineered into them. It would be silly not to! If you have a 6 kWh battery in the car, why not use it to power the house if necessary? Building an inverter to produce mains power from the car is not that big a deal and can be an optional feature.

As for Gen 2 Prius, it is also perfectly fine as long as the requirements do not exceed 1000 watts. I wish there was a more cost effective way of getting at the traction battery in these cars, but inverters that take 240 VDC are expensive and not so easy to find.

 

It's a risk after any event that results in extended power outage.

Cars emit a fraction of CO that other ICE appliances do. Gasoline ICEs that is, low CO is the reason mines use diesel for equipment.

I remember Hyundai pulling an ad that had a would be suicider failing when running a car in a closed garage.

It is a bright orange widget that plugs into the charge port, and appliances plug into it. Being Japan, I'd assume it is safe for electronics.

The Prime and other plug ins there can also supply whole house power. The car has to have a CHAdeMO outlet, and the EVSE/power supplier might cost more than a stand alone generator.

 

Tideland Prius says that:
"there are several built-in AC100V/1500W outlets in the car (one in the boot, one in the rear console if equipped with the solar roof option and one between the front seats)."

So no extra expense needed it would seem if you have the Japanese car.

Also, the car will supply 1.5kw load for maybe three hours or more (EDIT: for about four hours) in silence and emission free (at the point of delivery) without starting the engine from a full charge and Toyota say for 48 hours using the engine and a full tank of fuel.

I know which I'd rather have, this or a generator!

"https://priuschat.com/index.php?threads/176629/

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

This is only available in Japan.

It could only exist so that you don't have to run a cord from an interior inverter outlet. These will work for powering a few appliances.

If you want the car to power the entire house during an outage, and to do so automatically, you will need a bidirectional charging and power supply system. Like this one.

http://www.nichicon.co.jp/english/lib/new130.html

I'm sure the price has dropped since I last looked, but it was about $10k for the unit. They require a CHAdeMO equipped car, so the US spec Prime won't work. Toyota might have offered one for use with the Mirai. It couldn't charge as a FCEV, only provide power.