Back in 2006 when I first started writing professionally about cars, plug-in cars were just starting to make a comeback to the marketplace with the reveal of the Tesla Roadster. At the time, a number of fans of the second-generation Toyota Prius wanted in on the action and started adding bigger battery packs to turn them into plug-in hybrids. A combination of wanting to grease that squeaky wheel and plug-in vehicle mandates from the state of California eventually led Toyota to produce a plug-in variant of the third-gen Prius and I recently got to spend a week driving one.

(more…)