Power of the Prius for More than Just Transportation

This winter has left many people cold and in the dark as millions experience power outages during the last few months. What if a car, or parts of it, could provide power during an emergency? Toyota engineers are looking for ?enlightened? ways to do just that. Toyota?s fuel cell vehicle will hit U.S. roads in 2015. Highly efficient while producing zero emissions, a fully fueled vehicle has enough juice to power a small house for a week in an emergency. Engineers are currently working to develop an external power supply device to connect the car to the house and help keep the lights on. Toyota has millions of hybrids on the road around the world and they all have one thing in common. Big and reliable batteries. In Japan, Toyota has given new life to those old hybrid battery packs as stationary power storage systems. In use since 2013, the units provide peak power to Toyota dealerships around the country.