Hybrid cars are hitting our roads in ever increasing numbers as purchase prices come down and fuel prices go up. But the substantial hidden costs of owning a hybrid car could make it a financial time bomb.
By Glenn Butler

Owners of 'environmentally friendly' hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight may be hit with a bill for up to $7000 when their car's battery dies less than eight years after purchase. The battery unit, which has a lifespan of 8-10 years -- shorter in hotter climates like Australia -- cannot be reconditioned. It must be thrown out and replaced with a new one, at considerable cost to the owner.

"A replacement battery on the Insight retails for $6840," said Honda spokesman Mark Higgins. Honda began selling the Insight hybrid in Japan car in 1997 and in Australia in 2000. It sold 44 Insights before withdrawing the futuristic-looking two-door coupe from the market earlier this year. Honda will re-enter the hybrid market with the Civic sedan in March, and aims to sell around 20 per month.

Toyota's Prius four-door sedan has fared considerably better since it launched in October 2001. Nearly 500 Australians had bought the hybrid sedan by September 2003, and Toyota hopes to move a lot more of the second generation model released in September. Toyota divisional general manager - marketing, Scott Grant believes there is a market for around 50 Prius a month. "This product is no longer a science experiment but a mainstream car," he said.

Toyota's manager of alternative fuels and specialized vehicles, Vic Johnstone, concedes the batteries, like the car itself, are built to last less than a decade. "The life of the car and the battery are supposed to be the same... around 8 to 10 years," he said. "We're not expecting to replace them [the batteries]. In fact we only hold one [replacement] battery in stock nationally."

A high percentage of hybrid vehicles brought to Australia so far have ended up in government hands. In fact Toyota believes government and business fleets will account for around 50 percent of all Prius purchases. Fleet managers turn over their vehicles after 2-3 years, meaning unsuspecting second hand buyers will be stuck with an unexpected and unwanted bill down the track.

The cost of batteries will come down as technology improves and more companies take up hybrid engines. Toyota announced a tie-up with Nissan in September, which will see the Renault-owned car company packaging Prius' Hybrid Synergy Drive system into future models.

Toyota lowered the price significantly on the Prius battery pack, from $4500 on the first model to around $3000 on the latest version, though unlike Honda, which offers an eight year warranty on the battery, Toyota only offers five years.

Despite the dramatic price drop, hybrid ownership remains a nod to better fuel economy, not financial savings. CarPoint's review of the Prius, published in October, compared the hybrid's fuel consumption to a similarly specified Toyota Corolla, and reached the conclusion it would take 15 years before the Prius' fuel economy paid off the extra purchase price.

Add battery replacement every eight years to this equation, and replacement parts costs as the vehicle exceeds its planned life of ten years and components wear out, and owners have no chance of ever seeing a dollar back.

To further add environmental insult to injury, a considerable cloud exists over just how recyclable NickelMetal Hydride batteries really are - some reports even suggest that those who buy green may be doing more environmental harm than good. Both Toyota and Honda were unable to tell CarPoint exactly how much of the battery could be recycled. Both have left the task of recycling in the hands of a third party recycler.

Internet site www.BatteryUniversity.com warns against the careless disposable of Ni-MH batteries, due to the toxicity of it main derivative, Nickel.

" The main derivative is nickel, which is considered semi-toxic. Nickel-metal-hydride also contains electrolyte that, in large amounts, is hazardous. If no disposal service is available in an area, individual nickel-metal-hydride batteries can be discarded with other household wastes. If ten or more batteries are accumulated, the user should consider disposing of these packs in a secure waste landfill."

Battery packs like that used by Toyota in the Prius, contain up to 28 groups of six Ni-MH battery cells. Correct disposal is therefore important.

"TMCA has a process in place where it comes back to the dealer," said Toyota's Vic Johnstone, "and we can recycle the battery. There's a supplier in Australia that can manage the recycling."

The global market for hybrid vehicles is booming: by 2010 Toyota expects to have sold two million worldwide, while Honda expects hybrid power trains to account for five percent of its worldwide sales in the foreseeable future. Both General Motors and Ford -- the world's two biggest car makers -- have yet to significantly flex their hybrid muscle in the market, and industry watcher JD Power expects hybrid sales to increase tenfold in the next five years.

Most agree that hybrid vehicles are a stepping stone to fuel cell technology, which requires a major infrastructure overhaul to be practical, but it's hard to see a single financial reason for consumers to buy petrol/electric hybrids.

" The main derivative is nickel, which is considered semi-toxic. " I knew the government was out to kill me. They are trying to poison me with their currency.

Seriously though. This thread has so many holes and if the poster had bother searching would have found rebutals to pretty much every point in it.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"

why do you say that, its all true i believe it.

The Sky is falling, The Sky is falling, The Sky is falling, Run Run and hide!

Becides my battery & electrical/drive sys is covered 8yrs/100k

Watch out for the falling letters from the original posting.

I will have to agree with tbaleno on this one .....

04' # 5, W/leather & JBL omitted.
"Prius, Just ask the person that drives one"
04' Tundra, 18mpg city & 22mpg hwy.
04' Prius, 60mpg city & 53mpg hwy.

Kenstyle NHW20 AERO Kit

Well... if the batteries end up getting recycled instead of disposed in landfills, then how is this toxic for the environment?

Ok, so the battery lasts 10 years. Aren't there *other* things wrong with most cars by then? It's not like a 10-year-old Prius/HCH/Insight is going to have a pristine engine and transmission anymore either. The whole battery-cost issue is a fake argument. Most people who have a fully paid-off car simply buy a *new* on if faced with an expensive repair (like an engine or transmission). In that event, the dealer eats the cost of repair so that the old car can be refurbished and resold as a used car.

I don't see the problem here.

This is a very well-written piece but it does ignore on point that is commonly missed regarding the people who buy a hybrid. Anyone who buys one of these vehicles knows that they are paying several thousand more than they would for an equivalent non-assisted vehicle. That tells you that the current generation of hybrid owner is not necessarily in it for the money savings. Rather, they are in it to save fuel. Maybe they believe that the reduced emissions and oil consumption are worth it, maybe they think that the technology is just too darn cool to pass up. I would further argue that people who choose a hybrid may well have been looking at different vehicles at the same price point and decided to compomise for the fuel savings. In the latter case the consumer really does save a bit of money.

An anecdotal point: One of my coworkers just replaced the transmission on his '98 Accord with 115K miles on the odometer. The cost to him was $3000. It would have been nicer not to replace the transmission at all, but the fact is that it was a financially sound decision. The car is in otherwise immaculate condition and could easily run for another 100,000. Buying a comparable new car could have easily cost him seven to ten times that amount.

He doesn't know it but this was also an environmentally sound decision. Buying a new car comes with an inherent environmental price that is paid in the emissions and energy consumption of the manufacturing process. Several years ago I read an article stating that this accounted for roughly half of the average vehicle's net lifetime emissions, and in the days of SULEV and PZEV cars I would be willing to bet that the percentage is even greater.

I fully understand and recognize the logic presented in articles such this one and many, many others. I'm just saying that the world of hybrid ownership is much more complicated than putting numbers on paper. Those who see it that way will buy hybrids, those who don't will not buy hybrids. It believe that this first group will pave the way to more efficient, more reliable, and cheaper hybrid technology over the next five to ten years. At that point it will be a no-brainer because the nubmers will agree with the other benefits. Buy a hybrid today and you play a small role in what could be a catalytic revolution in transportation technology.

You are citing:
http://carpoint.ninemsn.com.au/car-n...=5487&R=ce5487

Can we assume those are Australian dollars?

Now I appreciate Glenn's concern. It was the fear of immenent battery failure by others that allowed me to buy a used Prius for a very nice price. Sad to say but the increasing numbers of perfectly usable Prii without battery replacements seems to be the strongest argument that the real battery life remains unknown and not defined by the warrantee.

Battery replacement statistics, at least in the USA, seems to be lagging. On Ebay, we are only finding them from wrecked vehicles. I would like to find a 'worn out' battery. Worse, rumors of batteries in landfills had me driving around with a shovel and the hope of finding some.

New to GH, you may want to look in the "Model Comparison" area where we have some fleet performance data for hybrid electrics. After four years and 160,000 miles in Arizona, a hot state, the cars had a small loss of MPG and the batteries continued to be quite servicable . . . but these are cars that were actually in service. In the USA, the typical battery warrantee runs 8 yr or 80,000 miles. The operational fleed data says the price per mile is between $.15-.25 per mile (US$).

It is possible that my Prius battery ages on time, not miles. Living in Alabama, I too am worried about temperature effects and have plans to mitigate them. But I have also noticed the price/performance numbers for batteries continues to improve. I am looking forward to future battery replacements with better performance. By then, the wheel bearings, suspension and 'soft bits' may have aged to a point that the vehicle needs replacement.

So for me, Glenn's FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) about hybrid batteries has been useful by letting me get a good price for my used Prius. The lessons learned are leading me to mitigate these risks and hopefully, achieve a substantial reduction in my total cost of ownership. But I'm in it for the long haul and would be happy to compare notes again in 2011.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

I replaced my 17 year old Dodge Ram-50 that I purchased new last year. It had 175,000 miles on it and it is still on the road. To assume that cars don't last more than 10 years is false.

People that are faced with an expensive repair and *sell* take a huge lose. I work next to 2 transmission shops, there is a constant flow of cars sold to the shops for next to nothing, only to be fixed by resourceful employees on their own time for easy profit. That is because the parts needed are cheap and the labor costs nothing. If the hybrids battery pack is the problem it isn't a cheap fix and may be of no interest to the shop or anyone.

Only time will tell, but it does seem possible that hybrids will be finding their way into the junkyard sooner than non-hybrids. If the cost to replace the battery drops to where it makes sense to replace then maybe not.

Don't know enough about hybrids, can you continue driving them without a battery if everything else is still functional or are they dead on the road?

The Prius has two batteries, a 12 VDC used for regular accessories and the control computers, and a 200-273 VDC traction battery. There are two motor generators that use the 200 VDC, traction batteries. MG1 is also the engine starter and the 'fulcrum' for the CVT. It is a clever system.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

I'll reword my question. Can a Prius still be a useful vehicle without a replacement battery? Can it simply act as a gas only vehicle in the event that the 200 VDC battery dies.

Thanks