Yeah, hacking your PSP is all fine and good, but you really
have to give it up for anyone hacking a hybrid car. The New York Times has an article about two guys in California who
are modding the Toyota Prius so that it can run entirely off of battery power for up to ten miles at a time and be
plugged into a wall outlet at night, giving owners the option of juicing up the battery so they don't have to fill up
with gas as often as they do now (they claim they're getting as much as 100 miles per gallon now). Toyota's not digging
it, since they want to emphasize the fact that the Prius works just like a regular car (they say this is just a scheme
by the utilities to sell more electricity), but giving people the option to plug their car into the grid when they want
to—but still run on gas when they need to—definitely makes sense, and the Times mentions that Chrysler is currently
testing plug-in hybrid vans.
[Via Autoblog]