Fully Wired Prius

Well, it’s not for you and it’s not for me but to prove it could be done (and seriously, were there any doubts) Alcatel-Lucent heavily modified a 2010 Prius for the CES show. Get the details at this Cnet article.

To summarize what they did, Alcatel-Lucent wired the car with LTE (a proprietary name for their version of 4G) and then added LCD panels to replace one of the glove boxes and headrest monitors for the seats. A number of Alcatel-Lucent partners added their connectivity apps to the vehicle not the least of which was Pandora. Who wouldn’t love to have Pandora in their car, excuse me, built-into their car? I thought so. Problem is, I don’t see Toyota’s partnership with XM being replaced by Pandora however much sense it might make.

Cool stuff to be sure. Like Pandora, I’m sure there are many Prius owners would love to have their vehicle become its own, roving, wireless hotspot. I know I could used that last summer in a big way. Alcatel-Lucent is still in the process of rolling out their LTE network and hopes to have 25 major cities up by the end of this year with the rest of the country following within three years.

Me? I’d settle for a nice iPod/iPhone integration kit. I also miss that spot in the center console where a Mac Mini fit so nicely, but I wouldn’t trade my 2010 for anything. So I’ll deal with it.