Yes. Of course, I bought mine second hand- I let the first owner pay for their "clever programming".

I do note that many of my wished for hacks *did* eventually appear, in the 2012 model year, with a variety of body types.

And that we're now down to about $3000 for the plug in and additional battery capacity modification. Parts anyway, labor extra.

The Dodge Ram Contractor is built that way- plus it's a full size, full power pickup truck that provides 48KW 120 volt outlets on the remote jobsite.

1) That might be part of my problem- I have had trouble to adjusting to the "light touch" needed for proper prius hypermiling video game playing. I have always been a bit of a leadfoot, and so I do have a problem with rabbit starts.

3) Yeah, that's probably the reasoning. I use it in 25 to 35 zones all the time though, and it really increases my mileage numbers, but that's related to my comment 1 above.....

7) that would take a heck of a jumper cable to deliver the 273 volts and who knows how many amps to spin M1.

And thanks to looking that up, I found this Emergency Response guide which does not say what to do if you run out of gas in a prius.

Here's a bit on what a hassle bricking a prius by running out of fuel + electricity is- nobody in America has done it yet, but I could easily see somebody accidentally leaving the car turned on when parking it (I've done it myself) in which I give it about a week before it's dead.

To the rest of the human race. After all, most people are on ISIS hit list if you understand their theology.

"imagine the next Star Wars movie where Jedi prefer blasters"

Funny, I saw that last night in the Disney Star Wars Rebels Cartoon. A Padawan who actually built a blaster into his lightsaber- so that he had both ranged and hand-to-hand weaponry.

DS9, bad as it was, did a MUCH better job of showing the implications of Utopia, especially in the Sisko-extended-family story line.

No, it's the supporters who are claiming that the moon is made of green cheese, that human beings are powerful enough to affect climate significantly.

There is a scientific consensus for that. But a mere consensus does not make it true, and it is, after all, a very fantastic and fantasy filled claim that has not been borne out by correct models.

It shouldn't even indicate that. Consensus has zero to do with truth or even confirmation of theory, scientifically speaking. The majority saying that the moon is made of green cheese does not mean that the moon is actually made of green cheese.

Nye may be a "science guy" but he's a popularizer, not a real scientist. Just an actor.

"This guy's career is totally a product of having the "right" position."

Which fits, because so do all his opponents. Scientific "consensus" is an indicator that something has gone horribly wrong with the scientific process.

" if proper peer review is undertaken"

The problem comes in when fads appear among the peers.

Oh, and back on topic and more to the point:
7. If gas tank 20% full and battery 20% full, hibernate mode on computer if accidentally left on and wheels are not moving. Right now if you tried to use a Gen2 prius as a backup house generator, you run the risk of bricking the system, unable to boot computer, unable to add more gas, must drag onto a flatbed and tow to Toyota to use their fancy charging system to bring the car back to life.

I guess I'd just make some different programming choices- and eventually really want to replace the computer in my Prius with one that has some added features. These features may already be available on newer models, mine is a 2006 Gen2.

Features I'd like to see:
1. The only reason to run the gas engine under 25 miles an hour should be for recharging and generating, period. EV mode only at low speed.
2. An expert mode should be available wherein "creep ahead at stop" is disabled
3. Cruise control should also be able to be set by a numeric keypad, and should be able to handle values lower than 23.
4. Sport mode should be available that disengages the traction control and enables all three motors for acceleration (you can get the second half of this in a gen2 by angrily stomping on the accelerator, it takes a second to engage, but you suddenly go from 34 HP to 174 HP as the second electric and the gas motor kick in).
5. Finer resolution than 5 minutes on the average MPG consumption graph.
6. Ability to download trip data onto an SD card.

If it is a hybrid and actually does charge itself.

Let's just hope that Dodge is slightly more sane in their programming than Toyota.