So we are planning a six-week road trip, mostly camping, and have a certain moderate amount of AC-powered gear to deal with. If our car had a regular-sized battery I'd invest in an inverter and call it good. What I am looking for is this: something like a "jumper" battery--heavy but portable gel-cell lead-acid that can be used to jump-start a car with a dead battery that a) has a built-in AC inverter, and b)--the tricky part--can be charged from a Prius 12-V power outlet while the car is running, without running any danger of blowing fuses, as well as from AC. Since the battery does NOT actually need to be capable of starting a car, there might be other options than a "jumper" battery. Just generally, what do other Prius owners do for small amounts of AC power while on camping trips?
I have both a small (100 watt) inverter and a 12 volt, rechargeable jump-start kit. The inverter is designed to fit in a cup holder and also has a USB port for charging those devices. I keep the jump-start kit in the back, and recharge it from the mains every few months.
depends on how 'small'. many threads here on running household stuff from the prius 12v and an inverter in power outages, leaving the car in 'ready' mode to recharge the hybrid battery as it recharges the 12v.
