eBay Find of the Day: plug-in Prius with A123 Hymotion kit installed charity auction
Want a 2009 Prius with a plug? It's available now, to the lucky winner of this auction on eBay. This particular vehicle was modded by the Green Car Company out in Bellevue, Washington and features A123's Hymotion plug-in hybrid kit already installed. That kit doesn't come cheap and this price of this PHEV Prius reflects that. The current bid is $42,100 but the reserve has not yet been met. The price isn't holding people back, though, as the auction started out at $25,000 and that 46 bids have already been placed. The good news for plug-in fans is that all of the profits from the sale will go to the advocacy group Plug In America, so any excessive bidding could be seen as just a friendly donation to PIA. There are more details on the car here and if the Prius is too pricey for you, Green Car Co. is also selling one of those Vectrix Scooters. Current price: $5,200. Thanks to Anthony C. for the tip.
[Source: eBay]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Z 2:22PM (11/02/2008)
Of course it's worth noting that at this price, you could buy a standard Prius and a lifetime supply of gasoline (~250,000 miles worth).
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gorr 2:57PM (11/02/2008)
I knew that the buying of a toyota prius was mainly a political statement. If you want to save fuel, why spend more for the car itself ??? About 10 000$ more. A fit or yaris make more sence because it cost less and you don't save fuel but you use and buy less fuel because you drive a smaller car. The trade-in is smaller vs bigger. With the prius it's 10 000$ more now to save 3$ fuel a week or if you are a taxi in a big town working 7/7 then save 10$ fuel a week, LOL. The nihilists and fools want to put gas at 10$ /gallon to save 10$ of gas a week with a prius instead of the actual 3$ a week if gas remain at 3$/gallon.
If you replace political statements from the fools then you go to the natural law of industrial economy that it is: the demand and supply law. Only this law make sence. It's a normal law that i observed throu-out history of mankind. Ex: french peoples after adopted communism from napoléon and killing 10 000 previous state administrators almost starve right after. Communism then again show it's face in russia and after killing the previous state administrators almost starve right after. Then communism in germany with hitler provoked almost the ceasing of germany saved by u.s. Then communism proposed on 11 september by you know who almost gets it's final way and have provoked, economic, social, nutricious, financial, civil liberties, industrial, energetic, war, crisis that still have to be solve by me.
The actual crisis in car business is mainly because consumers driven by me want a green car worth the name, not just deceiving tricks like hybrid, flex-fuel, batteries, etc. So this is the DEMAND. The offer side is 99.9% of actual cars and small trucks
are Gasoline or Diesel, the other remaining 0.01% cars and trucks are the much hype and talk about new 'green cars' like tesla, zenn, plug-in conversion by green car compagny, etc. So the offer side of the equation is almost non-existant at all.
The crisis come from the consumers (demand) that are still waiting for the supply side to show-up and have cease to buy the products actually on sale by old farts compagnies like gm, volvo, toyota,and the new deceiving new actors on the supply side like tesla, zenn, quantum, joe fart electrical conversion. Even eco-fueler is ignore by journalist and politicians. The consumers are waiting for real green technology and only honda in my view with their fcx have made a change on the supply side.
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Mike Otte 4:59PM (11/02/2008)
I have rented several Toyota Prius' since the current model was released in 2004. My most recent rental was in October in Jacksonville, FL and I did my usual gas mileage thing. I filled up at a station right outside the airport and made sure the car was full. I drove for two days and put 223 miles on the car, mostly highway miles driving to Daytona Beach, but also several in-town miles too. At the end of the drive when I took the car back to the airport, I parked at the same pump and was careful to refill the tank exactly as I'd filled it at the start. It took only 3.90 gallons to fill it. That;s 57.1 MPG from a standard rental fleet Prius.
My point is that many people claim to only get mileage in the 45 MPG range and complain that the Prius is not as great as advertised. I can't help but think that these folks don't take the time to learn the complexities of the car and the techniques to gain those extra MPG. Yes, I can drive it like my regular car and I won't get the stellar mileage, but with some care and attention to what I'm doing, I can get better MPG, the best I've done is 68 MPG over 300 miles and the worst was 46 on a trip from Chicago to Detroit where I simply drove with the traffic between 70 & 80 MPH.
My next new-car purchase will be a Prius. I'm not a tree hugger, but I have found that I have as much fun trying to nurse miles out of a gallon of gas as I do wringing performance out of a G35 or Grand Prix GTP. If it looks like I'm making a political statement driving a Prius, oh well.,,
I hope there are others out there who share my sentiment. I don't drive like a dangerous slug and block traffic. I accelerate faster with the Prius in traffic than most of the other traffic around, but I shut her down at 40 and get into "golf-cart" mode ASAP. Babying the gas pedal to reach 40 keeps you on dinosaur juice a lot longer and doesn't look much better on the instant MPG gauge than getting to 40 quickly. And you're off the gas quicker, twice as quick. Gotta love those cars! Oh, and on the highway in FL I stayed pretty much around 65 MPH. I don't think anyone felt I was a roadblock. Same in town. I stayed out of the way of folks who wanted to go faster. No sense in getting good MPG if you get rear-ended in the process or cause someone else to generate road rage because of a dumb, discourteous slow-poke.
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