Prius, still going ...

On the way home last night, in the parking lot I notices a Prius happily idling. No one was in the car. No one was even nearby. I stopped my bike, and as I did that the engine shut off and you really couldn't tell if the car was running or not. I had to wonder what the owner would think when they were headed home.

My boss drives a Prius, apparently the key is a proximity device. So as long as you have the key in your pocket, you can hit the on/off button to start the car. But if you walk away with the proximity key it'll turn everything off after a delay. So this car must have had the airconditioning on (or some power drain) that caused the engine to kick on, and it just hadn't timed out yet. Either that or the proximity key fell out of their pocket.

That must take some getting used to.