You cannot charge a Prius wth electricity. The alternate is gasoline. They get great gas mileage, and you can get a lot better mileage by turning off the A/C or heater. It’s not something you would do all the time, but it would help in an emergency.
My husband did a test to see how far he could go on one 11 gallon tank. He went over 700 miles!
You can now:
http://www.toyota.com/prius-plug-in/
As I recall, a little over 700 miles was about what I could squeeze out of my CRX 1.3. And with good tires on it, it was truly a fun car to drive. With 2012 engine technology in it, it’d probably be a killer.
Good review here:
http://www.automobilemag.com/green/reviews/0907_1985_honda_crx_hf_2010_honda_insight/