I like you David ....you are a positive active gifted pleasant and calm man. Stay the path

Man when u started talking about the weight distribution that just made me want it even more.

Now in 2020 these cars are old and cheap, as are used, yet still viable solar arrays as ppl update their home systems. I own three Prius this model, 1.2 million kms between them, one battery pack replaced. I bought a 1kw solar system for $350 and currently trying to work towards what David has here. I'll likely use cheaper, used batteries to feed into the OEM pack so the ECU see's a full pack and gtlides in EV as much as possible. We don't need to be millionaires, all we need is around us, just the skills, knowledge and will.

I just bought a Prius Prime Plus. PHEV can go up to 89mph in electric. Love it. So far I am diving better than expected. It says 25 miles on an electric charge, I'm getting 40 miles

Smart people like you inspire me.

What an impressive man you are. I never knew either of my grandfathers. But if I could choose one, he would be very similar to you.

Thanks David for being an early adopter pushing the renewable energy industry forward. I hope to have a modified Prius in the near future.

This is such a clean setup. I have to attempt it someday. What a wonderful upgrade.

Thank you for sharing. You live in an amazing place. Great idea for electric drive. I really like your videos!

I had solar panels installed on my home with the intent i would trade my third generation 3 prius for the next generation plug in prius. That dream has come true. I have the car programmed to be charged by noon when i do most of my daily driving. I love the thought of having my car charged by solar energy.

You're a smart guy, keep up the good work:)

I like it! really good job.

I have a 2010 Prius with the factory solar panel. It's a pet peeve of mine that it's almost useless, being used ONLY for running the fan blower when the car is off, and nothing more. I know it provides enough power to charge a cell phone, camera battery, emergency flashlight, or other small gadget connected to the 12v outlet. I've been looking for someone who has rigged it to power the standard 12v outlets (or an additional added one or two), or maybe even rigged it to trickle charge the 12v battery. *Anything* would be better than having it just waste free power. Sitting in the sun all day at work, or sitting in the sun parked at the lake or beach - I could be charging my camera batteries without having to have the engine run (which I do now). I just think there could be a better use of the unique feature we have of a built-in solar panel!

Awesome lifestyle! Keep it up!

Tesla is building what is called the gigafactory in Nevada that will produce lithium batteries. The gigafactory will eventually produce more battery kWs per year than the entire world produced last year. The entire factory will run on wind and solar power and recycle the used batteries which incidentally still have life in them. The gigafactory will eventually employ 6,000 people at $25 per hour and up. Google gigafactory and see what you think of the potential environmental benefits. By the way the Tesla car manufacturing plant in California currently has 6,000 employees.

Good stuff mate

Hi David, I am in Australia and in the process of installing a 10KW Plugin Supply system in my 2008 Prius. .. you live in a beautiful place - with your own pond! Love your work. All the best. Eric EVPlus

Kickass man!

That s really a genius solution!!🌞😁

The ultimate set up

Very cool. You've already put in a lot of work into this car, have you thought about adding solar panels to the roof for additional efficiency? Would be curious to see how that fares with your car.

You measure > 10KW charging because of charging inefficiencies, not because the pack is > 10KW. Charging is not free, you lose power AC -> DC and you lose power to heat.

Nice

Where on earth can we get this? Like, I just bought a Gen 2 Prius and have been looking at adding battery storage to take advantage of surplus solar power I have at times. But I've yet to find a kit that works as you're describing.

One last comment! Would you consider putting solar panels on the car itself?

Genius!!!

Dear david very bright plan with your car ithink your prius need an solar roof generating 400 watt.

Very cool. I haven’t owned a car for the last 20 yrs cause i lived in NYC. But i want my next vehicle to be electric. I wanted to do vanlife, but currently there are no electric vans available. Nissan only released the electric NV200 in Europe. And VW is coming out with an electric ID Buzz van with a 375mile range, quick charge & solar panel on roof that’ll give it an extra 10 mile range...but it isn’t coming until 2023. So i started looking at alternatives. Tesla is out of my price range. The nissan Leaf is an option. But the Prius is more roomy to sleep in. So i am thinking of getting a used Prius and doing something similar to you. Then eventually i can swap out for an electric van when they become a thing.

It was always a hybrid, it is now a PHEV, plug-in hybrid.

Nice informative video.can u tell me how much this battery and that system cost please.i want to put in my prius

Hi, nice project. Are you ok to share some tech details, perhaps you have connection diagrams or so? Thanks.

How many miles do you have on your prius, and does the retrofit replace the existing prius battery or instead of?

How did he connect the other batteries to main regenerative batteries? In parallel?

smart man

amazing, I would buy prius too. First I need house. Do you still have your prius 2.Gen with this modification running ? if so, did you change anytything?

How are you and your family? How is your Prius doing? Mine is doing fine still charge it daily. I did my Convertions in 2007. Hope everything is fine.

God bless you Sir, eco friendly and peaceful commute, how to steps and exact link to order if possible Sir?

Thanks for posting! To clarify, you get 70mpg *after* depleting the electric only drive, or is that only if you don't do an all-electric stint? (not sure how the battery pack is integrated into car). First scenario is better of course, but either way, amazing mileage! I have a 2007 (standard, not converted) and get around 40mpg consistently. Do you know if these conversion kits are still available for purchase? I've looked around a bit over the last 5 years but didn't see anything current. If you have a link to one that is, I'd be very grateful to receive info! Thanks!!

REAL ECO DRIVE !

Hi there I am from Pakistan owning a 2014 model Toyota Aqua aka Prius C. Your system is really cool & looks great. Can you share the car's portion, technical detail on how can I do it? The solar thing I can do myself here. Your help will be highly appreciated!

Do you still own and drive this conversion? How has the system held up over the years? Any issues with battery durability? Thanks!

So if you accelerate aggressively it will still turn the gasoline engine on? But just utilize the larger battery more often during routine driving ?

Hi there. I'm a little confused. Unless I'm mistaken, I thought you said that the Prius was originally just a regular gas-driven car. If that is the case, where did the electric motors come from? If it used a regular transmission, there would be no need for electric motors. Great job on your car, by the way. It's definitely a keeper. Thank you for your time. Best regards, Alan L. Janover

It all looks nice, but what about a cooling of additional battery? Doesn't it need it at all? It has been a couple of years since this film was here, so can you please say something about batteries vitality? Still working fine?

I'll stick to my old squarebodies like the white one in the background, lol.

What's the update with the battery back as of almost a year later. The quality of the batteries and conditioning, overall fuel economy change, reliability? I'm considering doing just the 4kw upgrade but I'm trying to dig a bit more and it's hard to find current users. Please help lol.

My Prius have on the top of the car something like look like solar panel but i do not for sure can somebody tell me what is

It was already a true Hybrid? Still nice mods.

If you work daytime, car sit parked 8 hours x 1 solar panel 250 watts = 2 kilowatt...nice top off. 8 hours, 5x panels 250 watt = 10 kilowatt

Hi Dave just found your site fun stuff I see you spell your last name the same as I do Bob Groth not to many of us that have the name spelled this way I live in Washington state.

DAVID CAN I ADD AN EXTRA PRIUS C BATTERY PACK TO MY PRUS C? JUST THE BATTERY PACK NO EXTRA COMPUTER.

So I have to ask...why jumper cables in the trunk?

Is the car still running?

How can I order the Conversion Kit ?

I've been sharing this video to friends over the last 6 years, one of them just bought a Prius and didn't even know you could modify them like this. It's funny but after all this time, even with the gigafactory completed and multiple years into full battery production Tesla's can still easily price out at $70,000+ and are still heavily impractical compared with the Prius. The famed $35,000 Model 3 never happened and instead we still see prices almost twice what the car originally projected at. Now being 2020 there's no exuse why everyone including the government should be pushing for hybrid upgrades such as this but instead you can't find companies willing to install them meanwhile there's an overinsured Tesla sitting on every street corner.

How is this Prius doing to this day?

Is it Prius s or pre I ?

Fast and the hippies

Almost forgot to leave enough room for the driver to fit inside....

10 KW hr is the capacity of the battery, not 10 KW. KW is power, the rate of using energy. Energy is KW hr, the total power used over time. That is, energy = power * time, actually energy = the integral of power with respect to time. Also, power = energy/time, again in calculus terms power = the derivative of energy with respect to time.

Recently, the California senate nazi's mandated that gas & electric hybrid vehicles must now be subject to smog checks also. Does the upgrade affect the smog emissions in any way? Is the upgrade frowned upon by B.A.R. or are they actually supportive of this upgrade? I don't see how they (or ANYBODY) could have a single negative thing to say.

Sadly, the Oil, Gas, and Energy companies watched this video, and hatched a scheme to ensure even electricity on a par with fossil fuel…no, I know, he’s got a solar panel. The problem is, I’ve realised, the car is the little bit at the end of a rather long road to using electricity to drive with! You can buy an electric car used, not great, but for less than maybe $10k. It doesn’t have to be great, it just has to plug-in. The real money, is for the solar panels, the batteries, etc, to make your electricity in the first place. If you have a home power station, EVs make massive sense, definitely. But if not, a decent Toyota Hybrid is as economical as you can get for the money spent. And, as I have discovered, when you look at getting a load of solar panels on your roof, the first thing they’ll do, is assess your state of rot in your roof trusses etc…this is the trouble, you end up beginning with several grand on a roof, then several grand on a set of solar panels etc, then maybe eventually, you get to the car part. Big EGO (Electricity, Gas & Oil) as I call them, just rules the world, and they call the shots, and they wind up prices for fun. We are literally held to ransom. It is ridiculous that you have to self-fund all your own solar panels, batteries etc, before you can economically drive an EV or similar PHEV or whatever. The whole point of distribution lines, was so it could be generated centrally. If those days are over, we need infrastructure spending galore. And there that will sit in the post-pandemic world. Take care all.

"1/2 mile off the ocean" you didnt explain why this matters at ALL???

how the heck 1 dislike really!!!

$6000??? just for the solar panel setup?? For 400 miles a month? thats supposed to be a good deal? A regular Prius could drive 400 miles on 9 gallons of gas. Thats $22.50 a month at the current price of $2.50 a gallon. Thats $270.00 a year to cover those 400 miles/month of local driving. Thats 18.5 years just to break even on the solar setup. And the car conversion cost even more??? wow. EXPENSIVE!!

2022, sure that car is already in the trash!!!!!!!!

Purely on $ economics it sounds like a bad investment. Obviously from an environmental perspective it's a good thing, but the cost of panels, batteries chargers etc. costs more than the gasoline saved.

It's an Inverter not converter.

I bet he has switched to a Chevy volt