Man Turns Prius into a Backup Generator

After a particularly nasty ice storm knocked out power to more than 1 million in Massachusetts and New England in mid-December, one resident did, well, what any good engineer would do:
 
“When it looked like we were going to be without power for awhile, I dug out an inverter (which takes 12v DC and creates 120v AC from it) and wired it into our Prius.”

According to the NYT blog post “Prius: It’s Not Just a Car It;s an Emergency Generator”  the resident used his improvised power source to run his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan and several lights.

Knowing several Patriots fans, I would assert that getting the TV going was paramount to the man’s survival. But one does have to wonder about the need for a freezer during icy weather.

2 Comments

1. 
   Wendy Bourne
   January 15, 2009

   And once again I ask – why is this in Made by Monkeys? The man has had a good idea, and made it work too.

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2. 
   Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com
   January 15, 2009

   Please don’t take the name ‘Made by Monkeys’ too literally, or too seriously – it’s a broad church encompassing design and ‘good ideas, bad execution’. Sometimes it’s ‘bad idea, bad execution’ and sometimes, as in this case, it’s ‘good idea, different execution’.

   I’m sounding a bit Rumsfeld-like, with ‘known unknowns, etc’… Think of ‘Made By Monkeys’, as ‘unknown knowns’
   AW

   reply