Plug-in-Hybrid, Cigarette Lighter

by Daniel N
(Cincinnati, OH, USA)

Your Car's Ciggie Lighter Can Do Many Things...

I read your article about Plug-in-Hybrids - how the Prius won’t let you add batteries, nor add in a plug to recharge the batteries.
Why couldn’t you add batteries and instead of hooking them right into the others, use the same principle of car jumpers that plug into the cigarette lighter to recharge the Prius batteries? I’m pretty sure you would have to make the wiring heftier.

Hey, Daniel!
Walk with me a minute.
Here's the problem: your car's ciggie lighter is a neon pink bendy-straw, and what you need to recharge your Prius (if you'd like it finished sometime this month) is a fire hose.
Reinforcing the bendy-straw with duct tape is a step in the right direction, certainly - you're not wrong about needing heftier wiring! - but if you've got to suck up Lake Shasta in ten minutes, or even ten hours...

...there's a right tool for the job, and that ole bendy-straw is not it.

There's still the car's computer you have to fool, too. Get a copy of the book "Plug-in Hybrids" by Sherry Boschert for more details.

Cheers,
Lynne