Creative Thinking from Toyota — Temporarily Powering Your Home’s Electrical Needs from Your Electric or Hybrid Car

© 2012 Peter Free

 

06 June 2012

 

 

Costs of installing a “home energy management system” may be significant, but Toyota still has an excellent idea

 

According to Daily Tech, the Toyota City Low-Carbon Verification Project team has invented a “vehicle to home” system that will power houses by using the battery-stored energy in electric and hybrid vehicles.

 

The idea is to charge the car during off-peak electricity rate hours and then draw the stored current for home use during peak rate hours.

 

I also don’t see why the same system would not work to keep some basic home electrical needs running during electricity outages. Daily Tech reports that, in Japan, electric and hybrid vehicles generally have enough stored power to run lights and electrical outlets in homes for 4 days.

 

Toyota is planning to test the system in actual use in Toyota, Japan (just east of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture) later this year.

 

 

Citation

 

Tiffany Kaiser, Toyota to Test System That Allows Prius PHVs to Power Homes, Daily Tech (05 June 2012)

 

 

The moral? — Chevrolet will need to closely watch Toyota’s experiment

 

Energy-wise thinking that gave Japan a leg up on the American auto industry in the 1970s.  And today, the burgeoning Korean auto industry will not be far behind in implementing a successful Japanese innovation.

 

Toyota’s Prius line was the third best-selling model in the world for the first quarter of 2012.