Batteries

I thought the US warranty on the batteries was 8 years.

I wouldn't worry about it. You'd hear priuschat users here screaming about it if this was a frequent problem. I have a feeling that battery costs, if and when they need to be replaced, will drop considerably year after year. My prediction is by 2015, there will be an active business in aftermarket hybrid battery replacements that will undercut the dealer's price by a couple thousand dollars or more, making hybrids an even better deal when new.

 

I don't know if there has been changes on battery warranty for Gen-III, but for Gen-II, the battery is warrantied for
- 8yr/100K for most states
- 10yr/150K for states that adopted strict emissions such as New York and Cailifornia
The price for a refurbished battery at dealer is about $2000-3000, and the price keeps going down year after year though slowly.

 

thats the price for a new battery pack not refurbished

 

I was told by my dealer here in Munich, Germany, that for the Prius II the battery would cost around 3500€. The only thing is that they *never* had to change one. The didn't sell many Priuses here in Munich though, so maybe this is not statistically relevant.
He also said he expects the price of the Prius 3 battery to be cheaper because it is smaller and because of economies of scale.
But, if after 100k-150k miles, you really had to change the battery, it's cost, compared to the overall price of the car is still not that bad. Consider that the battery of the prius is like changed half of the engine o a normal car. The batteries are one fundamental part of the car.

 

I too had that concern as I have heard it often from people badmouthing the Prius. What calmed my nerves was when I found out there were several fleets of the vehicles in rental fleets and taxi cabs. There hasn't been a problem yet, and I assume rentals and in particular taxi cabs are driven hard and for many miles per year.
If your looking for a used Prius, run a car fax. I ran into several 08's that came out of Orlando from rental fleets. They were mis-represented by the dealers selling them too.

 

Watch out for the fine print on the package. If it says "Batteries not included" you might be in trouble.

Tom

 

The 3G Prius battery is identical to the 2G. The cooling system has been reshaped a bit to allow the battery housing to take up a little less space, and Toyota have decided to allow slightly more peak power to be drawn from it, partly because of the improved cooling. I suspect they overengineered the 2G battery - some examples have driven more than 300,000 miles with no failures.

Champion ToyotaWorld will sell you a brand new battery for $1,967, though shipping is about $175.

First-generation cars (actually version 1.1, NHW11, as the very first model wasn't sold outside Japan) have commonly got over 150,000 miles out of their batteries. You can see some information about this here.

The battery problem most people have is not with the high-voltage battery but with the standard 12V lead-acid one! That battery is required to boot the computers and run the alarm and smart-entry system (Toyota have judged it unsafe to leave the HV battery connected when the car is 'off'). It's quite small, and it's easy to leave the headlights on accidentally. It doesn't tolerate being discharged; lead-acid batteries can usually only manage a few full-discharge cycles as doing so damages the electrodes.

 

I'm hoping my battery fails at 9 yrs / 11 mo* so that I get a new battery from Toyota under warranty. :madgrin:









*The HV battery warranty is 10 yr / 150,000 mi in California (and those states that have adopted Calif emissions) to comply with CARB requirement for AT-PZEV.

 

2001-2003 had batteries of substantially different design. They went through an early life special service campaign to re-seal the cells to prevent electrolyte leakage.

Even so the failure rate of that design has been about 10% so far. Could be higher, our guesses are based on public postings. It is fair to presume that this rate will continue to climb, at least slowly.

Since 2004 the new battery design has been much more reliable. Even though the 2004+ fleet is much larger, we are simply not hearing of many HV battery failures.

I guess there are two origins for the battery fail 'myth'. One dates from about 2000 and is basically 'oh that can't possibly work' - unsupported by any data. Second is a (more or less accurate) assessment of the 2001-2003 design, but assuming that the same will apply to the new design. Unsupported by data.