when you replace the battery

Replacement is rarely ever needed and the battery itself is recycled.

.

 

mattpop....


A lead-acid battery compare to a NimH-Battery???

If a NIMH-Battery of a RC-car fails (Shortcut)....it will become warm, and than very hot, than the safety valves pop out and the electrolyte comes out...

No BANG! No death....

lead-acid batterys can "explode" because the steam pressure generated by the "cooking acid", can not compare this to NimH - Cells....

The battery of the prius is not ONE BIG battery....it contains many small cells...its unlikely all fails the same time

Andreas

 

Incredible statement!
Do you seriously think Toyota would design a car that would have the potential to "blow up" like it was full of dynamite because of batteries! :der:

 

I have. And based on the number of transmission shops, I'm not alone.

In fact, my bad experience is what led me to researching other transmissions. So, the fact that Prius has nothing but what is essentially a differential made it really appealing, since those almost never need repair or replacement.

.

 

LIFE CHANGING experience is absolutely right. Lead acid betteries generally only blow up because of overcharging, and/or low electrolyte. Prius HV batteries appear to be totally safe, according to statistics. Jump in, get your feet wet!

 

John,

A small number have failed, usually due to shorted windings in the MGs (in Classics). Some of us refresh their ATF at 60k miles (2004+) or 30k miles (classic) to avoid the build up of metallic particles and hopefully reduce the probability of this failure.

JeffD

 

The danger from the fuel in the fuel tank is much greater than the battery, yet all our cars have a fuel tank.

I agree with you that this type of vehicle is a life-changing experience. My two previous cars were awd turbo sports cars. My Prius has less than half the horsepower my previous car had.

I now tend to stick to the center/right lane at 60-65mph, I make it a game to minimize my fuel consumption. I don't care anymore when another car passes me. I feel much more relax when I arrive at work.

Once you drive a car with auto-shutoff (the hybrid cars' internal combustion engine stops at red lights unless the battery needs to be charged or you're asking for heat in the winter) you'll think that any car should have that feature (wether hybrid or not).

The brakes (pads/discs/drums) will seem to last forever as they are rarely used due to the renegerative braking of the electrical motor.

Make sure you are aware of the irks/quirks/shortcomings of the car before you buy one... make sure you are ok with them.

I will miss my sports car, but I like my hybrid a lot. I am fine with my choice and have no regrets... I do hope that one day Tesla-like cars become affordable

 

Conventional automatic transmissions are ingenious and complicated devices. However they do require periodic maintenance and have a non-zero failure rate. As John1701a points out, an entire secondary industry has developed to keep the US's 170 or so million of them on the road. The tricky part is to develop a reasonable extimate of what they cost on average in cents per mile. I have tried, claim that it is in the range of 2 to 4 cents per mile, but remain very open to improved estimates. I'd really like to know because...

In some sense, this slightly fallible component has been substituted in Prius by the HV battery, another slightly fallible component. Here we can say that assuming that everyone needs a new one at 200k miles and that it costs $3000 dollars, this is 1.5 cents per mile.

My expectation is that the average service life of Prius HVB will be longer than that, so I would cost the battery a bit lower. But lacking a conventional auto trans makes me very happy. Because I too have had bad experiences with those in previous vehicles.

 

Not that you will be with us long Matt, I suspect you will be bounced soon, but have you ever seen a supercharger blow up? How about a clutch explode from the bell housing? Have you ever seen a V8 spit its guts out? I have and it ain't pretty. That's why in drag racing parts of the drive train need to be covered with shielding and balistic blankets and webbing straps.

I've also seen a lead acid battery spit its acid all over my boss in a past job. It couldn't have found a better target! Stupid fool shorted across the terminals right after disconnecting the fast charger. Prius has been around for about 8 to 10 years now and I've never heard of a battery blowing up.

Did we come near a bridge? I smell something.

 

Further, just to be picky, IF the "traction battery" ever did vent, it would be a base, not an acid. It's Potassium Hydroxide with a little Sodium Hydroxide in a solution with water. It's in a fully enclosed steel container, vented to the outside of the car, so I doubt you would ever know it happened, except the dash would light up with warning lamps and probably a buzzer would sound.

I'll bet we never find out. It's so well managed by the computer systems and protected by a ground fault system with relays and fuses it's unlikely you could damage the battery enough to cause it to short.

 

By "life changing experience" if you mean retiring your wrenches, YEAH, the Prius would be a life changing experience.

If you decide to purchase a Prius or another hybrid, it's no longer like you are blazing some trail with some unknown quantity.

Over 1,000,000 have been sold, and Consumer Report has nothing but glowing remarks.

If you really don't want to retire your wrenches and want to spend your free time fixing cars, fix other peoples' cars and at least get paid for it.

 

Matt, I for one do not give trucks and SUV drivers dirty looks. Most of the people I know that drive Prii wouldn't give them dirty looks either.

One aspect of the issue you and many others have a problem with is the magnitude (size) of things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you have a birth defect or anything like that. I'm saying that most people don't truly know what BIG and SMALL are. One of my jobs is to work with statistics -- display the numbers one way and a small problem looks big -- display them another way and a big problem looks small. For example, what is the effect of adding 2 MPG to every vehicle Americans drive? The answer is millions of gallons saved in a short period of time. Millions with a big M. Just from getting two measely MPG more from our vehicles.

You can look at it a few ways: the oil being pumped out of the ground would last longer so we could keep our trucks and SUVs longer and/or we wouldn't have to go crawling on our knees to the Saudis to pump more oil. My example had nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with kicking the major oil producers out of my wallet.

Have a good time spreading your knowledge, but also understand that we don't know what kind of knowledge you are trying to spread and it makes some folks jittery.

 

Well, here's the IIHS rating for the Prius:

IIHS-HLDI: Toyota Prius

Actually, it's one million Priuses:

One Millionth Toyota Prius Sold