Recently I had to talk a friend out of hastily buying a new car after having her boyfriend's Prius abruptly lose all power on her in the middle of heavy traffic

Recently I had to talk a friend out of hastily buying a new car after having her boyfriend's Prius abruptly lose all power on her in the middle of heavy traffic on the 5 (CA). Turns out this is a common thing with his generation of Prius, something about the motor controller inverter thingy overheating.