HYBRID BATTERY LIFE

LOL!!!! Your neighbor is talking out of his exhaust pipe.

Do a search and you'll find lots of info about hybrid batteries.

Think a little about your neighbor's statement and it makes absolutely no sense at all.... 5 years? Then why are they warrantied for 8 - 10 years? 75% of the cost of the car? Then how is it that hybrids don't cost almost twice as much as a non-hybrid version?

The batteries are built and designed to last the lifetime of the car.... and if you ever did wear one out and it was out of warranty, there will be much cheaper replacements available (and they'll probably be much better than the originals). Battery technology will advance a lot in a decade.

Just check out this page - has all the info you want...

http://www.hybridexperience.ca/Reliability.htm

I am totally on board with you. I don't understand these pointless arguments some people have over how much will it cost to replace the batteries. They need to look at the big picture and start doing something about the way we live, and consume the earth. Arguing and bickering will only lead to a standstill that will never allow us to move in the right direction. Your post is very good and to the point.

Can't agree more. (Just don't drag the whole darn Republican/Democrat issue into this discussion because it causes, should I say, some defensive reactions from certain sectors.) "Hybrid" as it's name implies, is a stepping stone to the next generation of alternaive fuel vehicle. I work in the oil industry and no matter what anyone else ells you or projects, everyone in the upper echelons of our business knows we only have about (optimistically) 50 to 75 years of oil left at current consumption levels. That's at our CURRENT consumption level, folks, not a consumption level that includies the projected leap taken by the "rise of the rest" i.e., India, China, Malaysia, etc. That oil is like a modest cash settlement left to us by our parents: we can spend it on some wild times in Vegas, or invest it in something that will provide us with a comfortable and safe retirement. In other words, I have no problem using that oil energy to mine nickel for batteries, produce silicon for solar panels, or turbines for wind generators; I think it's a horrific waste to see it frittered on vain crap like Hummers and Yukons. I'm just afraid that we're going to be like the 13th (?) century Easter Island natives that cut down the last of their treesto use as rollers for their god-statues. Those trees were the only material they had to build boats with, and the loss left them with no way to fish and consequently no way to feed themselves. Our remaining oil reserves are the trees on our "island". We need to put just a tad bit more thought into how we use up the last of it.

Unfortunately, this is a political issue to too many. I live in a red state and of all my buddies I hang out with, I'm the only Democrat. They are all Republicans. They are all college degreed and professionally certified types, educated and experienced, one could argue.

I just bought my second hybrid. One of the guys refers to it as a gaybrid. Another lavishes criticism on it, largely based on the anti-hybrid propaganda that's readily available on the internet. Yet another simply makes fun of the color. You see they hate tree-huggers and they associate (perhaps unconsciously) hybrids with tree-huggers. Of course they are wrong; it's more complicated than that.

It shouldn't be a political issue; it should just be about finding a better way. But unfortunately, in my experience, it is political. Like we need more obstacles to progress....

The price of gas has exceeded $7/gal in Europe & Japan for more than a decade. The added cost of the hybrid drivetrain vs. fuel savings requires more than $10/gal to be economical. The simple fact is a smaller more efficient engine/car can save more fuel than the hybrid drivetrain, with lower costs (BTW, do we really need 300 HP sedans?). That's why you're seeing hybrids on larger more expensive vehicles, the relative cost of the hybrid drivetrian is smaller on more expensive cars. The true solution is an all electric vehicle. The complete conversion to electric power is only going to occur when battery power density improves to the point where people can drive 300 miles between charges - like their gas car or consumers won't accept it. In the short-term people will use electric cars as commuter cars (<100 miles per charge) and hybrids - or rent gas cars for trips.

Regarding the Republican remark, I don't know why they're seen as not green. The difference is Republicans believe the free-market will develop solutions as gas gets more expensive. Dems believe the government should subsidize the direction and rate of progress, which hasn't worked in Europe. Europe has much worse emmision standards and terrible particulate pollution from deisel (read lung cancer) and $10/gal gas. Because of their taxes, they sacrifice polution for a few mpg's. Don't worry, oil will become far too expensive long before we overcook the earth. We'll need it for plastics, medicine, heavy transport and lots of other really useful things - not burning it to go to work.

In the meantime, if you want to reduce CO2 emissions and pollution here are a few ideas:
1) Don't buy anything from China, or undeveloped countries, they don't even attempt to do the right thing. They need serious help! We need to put a large import tax on anything from rouge economies to give them and our consumers incentive! But what about Wal-Mart's low low prices? Are they really low? No one talks about the real cost.... Will that be covered in cap & trade? or will China just make everything for the world, while we think we're doing the right thing?
2) Protest the fact that Indonesia puts more CO2 in the air than all of US transprtation every year when they burn their harvested crops and clear land. Add in Brazil and this represents over 20% of all manmade CO2! Outrageous that no one protests.
3) Recycle! One day we'll mine garbage dumps.
4) Promote nuclear & wind energy. Solar panels won't cut it for now. If you covered every roof in America with solar panels it wouldn't represent 10% of our energy use and would cost too much! In 10-15 years maybe.
5) Use wood products. It sequesters carbon and displaces products that would otherwise be made from plastic.

Thanks for nice comment on Hybrid Battery. Keep it up and nicely done. They are the future cause our resource will finish very soon.

I think you may be confusing it with the all electric car batteries. The older ones definitely gave up the ghost after 4-5 years because of the deep cycles. Newer ones are warranted for 7 or 8 years which is good for the consumer, but I will have to wait and see in real world testing if they in fact last that long.

Time is the true test.

Bob
Hybrid Water Car technology

Thanks ex-EV1! I will try to contribute more. I don't force anyone to check out our site, it's just good business practice.
I'm not some teen-age geek hidden away in his mom's house. I'm a 50 year old man who has loved cars all his life.
I have several businesses with employees. When I discovered this water hybrid technology, I was blown away- I couldn't believe our Auto Makers had not been putting these things in our cars by now.
I researched it thoroughly. I spent thousands of my own money determining if it really worked or if it was some great internet hoax.

Well, it did work. And people are using it around the world. It's saving them money, saving gas, and it cleans up the emissions to almost zero!

Isn't that what we are all trying to achieve here?

When someone asks a question about saving gas, or converting their old car into a hybrid - there are not too many solutions that are both practical and affordable. I want to help those people find a way like I did, that's all.

Water Hybrid Technology is fairly new, so I've taken it upon myself to shout it from the mountain tops, so to speak. People are hurting- budgets are tight and politicians are gutless.

This is a practical solution for a hundred bucks or so. Isn't that a better solution than $6000 more for a few MPG increase?

I will continue to post, but will be mindful of what you said.

Thanks!
Bob
Hybrid Water Car technology

I have a Prius with 140k miles and just had to replace the whole battery pack - I called several dealerships in the Seattle area and it costs between $4200 to $5000 to replace. When I bought the car they told me this would never happen as they could replace just the bad cell. I had 2 bad cells out of the total 32. They will only replace the whole pack. What also stinks about this is they only give you a 1 year parts warrenty on the new pack. Several other dealer ships had Prius in to replace their packs and mileage was around 138 k. With replacement parts that cost you $5000 you lose the benefit of the better milage. Don't buy one!

I am considering a 2006 Prius with 78K on it from a Toyota dealer for $15,000.
I am concerned about battery replacement in the future....I was told by a friend that it may cost $10,000.
I can't afford a brand-new Prius, so if the battery went bad and it did cost that much, the price would be as much as a new car, and I would be out of luck.
Any comments, suggestions on what to ask the dealer?

The fact of the matter is you may not have to replace the battery during the warranty's lifetime, but when you think about it that chemical producing hunk of metal will sit in a landfill forever. It can never be fixed once done, never be reused for any of it's parts, and it doesn't help the enviroment at all. We need to worry about what is in our landfills and not what is in our air.

your all treehuggers

im just playing around actually hybrid cars are the new age of driving they have low emissions and they use less gas. for example look at the new Toyota 3rd generation prius it uses the wind and sunlight to power its cars.

I loathe democrat liberals. they are plain filth. they are elitist, and their logic is based upon they know better than you do. Usually seen wearing birkenstock sandals, that is how you pick them out in a crowd. they love al gore of course. He who wants to sell them carbon credits. but not because, it helps clean up the environment... but so he can get richer. But did you know how he got rich in the first place? he owned $500M of Conoco stock. yes, that right, he was in bed with the dirty oil crowd. He cares less about any of the wacko environmental crowd then he does about his gasoline guzzling cars, and not a single battery-powered one among them. This man is just common filth. all democrat elitists are also common filth.

actually both honda and toyota reclaim old hybrid battery's and charge a heft core if not returned. salvage lots know this and will return bad ones to claim the core.

Battery packs can be recycled for other uses; A battery that is too weak to power your hybrid can still be used to store power from solar panels for instance and that is just one example.

Tom, your a typical hypocritical republican. You criticize everything whilst offering no alternatives. The only right solutions are those offered by republicans (even though they are usually narrow-minded, elitist, selfish and only serve a certain segment of America. New technology, new ideas cannot be stopped and is what this great nation was founded on. Sure, hybrids and alternate fuel source cars are just at the beginning, much as cars as we know it were at the turn of the 20th century, (and back then repulican farmers didnt want to let go of the horse and carriage either im sure.). Dont worry, im sure toyota will invent a nice huge non-gas guzzling pickup for you rednecks out in the boonies one day, so take it easy and chill:)

Please correct your remark above. The Toyota Prius new or used DOES cost 2X the same size non-hybrid auto. The gas-saving feature of the hybrid vanishes when you have to replace the battery. Been there and done that. NO MORE HYBRIDS FOR ME.

my dick is a hybrid, does it need a battery?....... nope.

The starting price on a 2012 Honda Civic Sedan is $15,805 and the starting price for the same car in a hybrid is $24,050. That is a difference of $8,205 which in 2010 is almost the same as the average used car that was purchased. The normal sedan gets a combined average miles per gallon of 32 while the hybrid gets 44. The average miles driven a year is 13,576 according to The Federal Highway Administration and the average gallon of gas in California costs $4.26. You would spend $1314.40 on gas in the hybrid one and $1807 in the gasoline engine. That is a difference of $492,91 so it would take around 16 years until you break even on it and that is if you don’t have to by batteries. Hybrids suck assssssssss ha

Your calculation makes sense, but things are changing: hybrids are getting less expensive ( Honda Insight for example cost now 18, 500) and gas will became more expensive.

Why not just see where this hybrid technology will take us? Just as the ICE has been developed into the wonder that it is (with all it's benefits AND, to be fair, it's missteps), the hybrid may may prove to be just as good. I'm not a big fan of high tech stuff going into our cars (how about a nice V8 in a Mustang GT - I don't have one but they're nice), I think we need to develop our present technologies to cope with our problems. And to be fair, I think that the auto manufacturers have done a decent job of producing a pretty good product. I don't think I would own a hybrid, but they do seem to work and they're getting better all the time. Now about that that Mustang GT . . .

I'm looking at buying a 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid that has 75,000 miles on it at a local car yard for $12, 700. So to do my homework I just checked with a Ford dealership on what the cost of replacing the batteries for the vehicle, should it be needed after the 100,000 mile or 8 year warranty that Ford provides. His reply was that battery and installation along with tax would come to $9,165... Is this for real??
Hoping someone out there can either enlighten me as to some govt. subsidy or something. How about how long I can expect the battery to perform before it actually needs to be replaced. Do you get warning signs, or does your car just die...
You know I see a lot of Republican/Democrat yap on this website... I was raised a Republican, but after the disgrace that was the Bush/Chaney/Rumsfeld administration, all of whom I feel need to be tried for treason, not to mention crimes against humanity, I am now an independent. As for the whole "tree hugger" label that's being thrown around, (as an ex sailor who spent 12 years travelling this planet and knows what its like to live long term with finite resources) I can honestly say we better all damn well be tree huggers and be proud to be called so, as this is all we got! This planet is a lot smaller than you think, and its resources a whole lot more precious. We keep screwing with this little patch of the dirt, shoving it full of chemicals that leach out into our finite water supplies and life is going to become a whole lot more serious.

May be he was talking about the `12 v battery which i paid to be replaced $160 for it at the dealer. I had been driving my car for a while, it is a prius 06 with almost 120k miles & its hybrid battery still as good as new, or at least thats what my mpg reflects on my wallet.

eBay has used Ford Escape hybrid batteries for 400 bucks.

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your point of a prius with well over 300K miles does not address the life expectancy of the battery of 5 to 7 years. 500K miles in 2 years or 350K miles in 4 years is still 2 years and 4 years respectively. So Tom what research would address the actual question?