[aprssig] Prius Battery Life and Replacement Cost (was: Control Head Thieves)

[Ray McKnight]

Bob, that link doesn't work for me.
But I have a question, maybe you answer it on your web page...

After watching "Who Killed the Electric Car", the subject of the
Prius came up.  We all love the concept of the Prius, but not so much
Most of the other hybrids that fail to get much better mileage than
A Corolla.  But the big debate revolves around battery life.  Toyota
And most everyone else all promise the batteries will last "the life
Of the car", but are not warranted past 100,000 miles.  10 years is also
Murmured a lot as well.  Everyone has horror stories of rechargeable battery
Failure, it's not a question of if, just when.  Given that a Prius with
A bad battery is basically useless and will have near-zero resale value.
The replacement cost has been quoted at anywhere between $5,500 to over
$7,500 (I think Ford's are up at the top end of this range).  So will
Prius be a throw-away 100,000 car?  Who knows for sure if the batteries
Can survive high mileage or longer than 10 years?  Will it be cost effective
To sink such a large amount of money replacing batt's in a 10+ year old
Vehicle?  All of this has caused most of my debating friends conclude that
Given the high initial acquisition cost, the cost/mile of ownership will
Eventually be several times higher than a car with 35+mpg costing under
$18,000.  And, no, I am not ignoring the environmental considerations.
Comments?

BTW, loved your idea for using the Prius as an inverter battery pack and
Standby generator.

Ray - WB3ABN
Kingston, WA 

-----Original Message-----
From: aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org [mailto:aprssig-bounces at lists.tapr.org]
On Behalf Of Bob Bruninga 
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 17:08
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List
Subject: RE: [aprssig] Thieves, Control heads...and PHEV's

> I've always wondered how effective putting solar panels 
> on an EV would be.  Just how far can you go on 
> 1.6kwh of juice?

The Prius takes about 200 WHrs per mile.
So I figure on mine, Ill get about 8 miles..

http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/APRS-SPHEV.html