Hacking your hybrid

You can't just plug into the wall socket or you would be back feeding into the grid and trying to power the whole neighborhood.

To prevent that, all that's necessary is to turn off your main breaker.

Don't some hybrid trucks, like Fords, offer plenty of 120VAC generator capacity standard?

GM hybrid trucks have a 120V outlet, but there is not enough capacity to run an average household, more like a power tool that a contractor would use.

Well, there's a little more to it than /that/ to be safe, but just dumping the main will work. You need a physical lockout so the main can't be turned back on by another well-meaning household member.

And with the main off you won't know when the utility comes back on till the neighbors come by and ask you why you are still sitting in the dark....

You really should have a transfer switch (manual or automatic) and separate sub-panel for the Emergency circuits. Then there is no chance for a backfeed.

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I think they are talking about V2G which is vehicle to grid. The point of V2G is to suck some power back out of your EV's battery pack and use it to supplement the grid and help prevent a blackout NOT to power your house during a blackout. The car gets hooked to a grid tie inverter that is controlled by the electric company so no transfer switch or breaker flipping is necessary as the inverter simply shuts down during the blackout. In other words the backfeeding is intentional.

OTOH if all you want to do is power your house during the blackout you simply follow the instructions at

(click on the image of the Seaside Pearl Prius at the bottom). It will require an industrial computer UPS but it won't require an add-on Li-Ion battery. A ~200V DC power socket takes up a lot less trunk/hatch space than an additional battery would.

There was a web site a couple years ago where an electrical engineer tapped into the computer on his Prius through the OBD-II port (or perhaps another port behind the dash), wrote a few programs and was controlling/ monitoring his Prius using a Toshiba Libretto computer. When we were talking about hacking the Prius earlier I tried to find it but couldn't.

I keep a padlock on mine, so no problem.

Safest, to be sure.