HaroldinCR — Our situations sound similar, except instead of being in the jungle, I'm right next to a railroad where the "rich folks eating in a fancy dining car" goes high-balling by day and night. I used to ride it to Seattle occasionally.
I know [barely] enough about electronics and software to be dangerous. What I wonder about is things like this; from Power Electronics in 2012:
Solid state transformers could be the next big thing in power electronics | Power Electronics
This is dealing with kilovolt high-line power. Is there any thing comparable for vehicular power electronics?