Looking to purchase an HAH. One of my concerns is long term costs. I know the battery will need to be replaced at some point but does anybody have an idea what the costs would be? Aside from the battery would there be anything else that needs to be maintained? Thanks in advance. Sorry if this has already been posted but I tried the search function and couldn't come up with anything.

 

Hybrid car costs are the same, if not less, as traditional cars. Besides the battery that may need to be replaced at 150,000 miles or so (at least for Toyota -- not sure about Honda), there aren't any other "hybrid maintenance" procedures. Sometimes the intervals for scheduled checkups and oil changes are actually longer.

 

There are at least a couple of websites online where you can look up various parts of a Honda, and they sell at a discount. Doing this for the battery pack for a Civic Hybrid, the pack now costs a little over $1700, discounted. (I looked again to day, and couldn't find it again - the battery pack was no longer in the price list). That's lot's better than the $3K+ that people like to quote for the cost. I'm not sure if the Accord pack is bigger than the Civic pack (which consists of 120 "D" cell NiMH batteries in series, 1.2V each, 144 volts total, for comparison). I've also searched the internet for retail prices on NiMH batteries and found some for $5 each. They aren't necessarily the same as the car batteries (charge/discharge characteristics same?), but that would be $600 for 120, as a "do it yourself" option. (I wouldn't recommend it without knowing exactly what you are doing and knowing the batteries are correct).

 

Also, by the time your battery pack wears out (well over 8-10 years) they will have dropped in price considerably because of high volume production. There's also a good chance they will last a lot longer than currently predicted because of the partial charge-discharge system the computer maintains. There are 1G Prii around that have driven far beyond what was predicted as useful lifetime and are still in good working order, in fact there's never been a replacement done yet. I think there will be various mechanical drivetrain problems occurring sooner than battery problems, but that's just speculation.

 

My plan: In 5 to 10 years I'll replace the battery as part of a PHEV upgrade of my 2G Prius. And through the car's lifetime, I'll have about 1/3 the brake maintanence, and none of the rubber chain repairs.

AFAIAC, the HV is a non-issue.

The electronics, OTOH, make me nervous enough to purchase an extended warranty.

 

One thing I find kind of humorous, is people that own older, unreliable vehicles (or even newer ones) telling me how expensive my hybrid will be to own because of the battery that will have to be replaced "every few years" (their words). Even if that were true, my costs would be lower than theirs, most likely, as they will be replacing water pumps, rebuilding engines, fighting electrical gremlins, etc. and I probably won't be. (Plus, there's that mpg difference...)

 

The battery replacement could be done theoretically for well under $1k, if only the cells themselves were worn out. The Civic and Accord use an array of rechargeable stock D-cells. I'd suspect the cells will be the first thing to go, but if electronics or some proprietary part fails, then you might be at the whim of Honda. In 8-10 years though, volume of production on packs will make them cheaper, even from the Manufacturer. They should hvae higher density lithium packs in Hybrids by then as well. I suspect it will be feasible to get aftermarket battery packs--with a bit of software tweaking, there's no good reason a more powerful, cheaper aftermarket replacement shuldn't possible. (though there might be a *bad* reason why it isnt possible, so I wouldn't count on this)

 

Simple solution...get the Honda Care extended warranty after shopping for a low price, then drive the car and dont worry. Sell it when there is a year or so left on warranty. Put your mind at ease. That is what I am doing with my HCH. and it works out to only a little over $100 per year for the extended warranty.

With my experience with rechargeable batteries used in cell phones, drills, radios, I doubt the battery will make it for more than five or so years and then with degraded service. My question is, what point is there when Honda will replace the battery, when it wont charge at all, when it gets a bit weak or??? That might be when we have a fight on our hands. This would be true with Toyota and any other makes as well.

 

I think the battery ECU will register a fault code when it cannot charge properly or draw current properly. There was a minor issue with the first Prius batteries where the positive terminals got corrosion and the ECU registered a code due to higher than normal resistance in the battery. That is basically the only way to monitor the health of the battery (internal resistance) and it's measured by monitoring it's ability to take a charge and the resulting increase in the state of charge as indicated by voltage.

Also there's a big difference between cell phone, laptop and other electronics devices with rechargeable batteries as compared to hybrids because a hybrid will purposely only use a portion of the available capacity in order to extend it's useful life. Generally the car will keep the battery between 40% and 80% charged, unlike other devices that allow the battery to be depleted and charged to 100%. Also most laptops use Lithium Ion batteries, and they have a shorter useful lifespan and shelf life than the NiMH packs used in hybrids today.

 

Good points on the battery. and that's probably the focus of "longterm costs" folk seem concerned about?

There's a big difference when the battery is being managed by computer and charged as needed from a power source like regen braking or an engine to keep it in the sweet spot. You've probably also noticed that the battery is not used nor charged until it's heated up to some defined operating temperature, in the HAH? Unlike a camera or latop which doesn't have much choice!

Take with a BIG grain of salt, but I've read on the 'net that:

a) There are 8 year old Prius's in Japan that haven't had batteries replaced ( the model was released long before it reached our shores ). In fact, a statement was made that *no* battery set in any existing Prius has required replacement yet, other than due to accidents. ( Anyone know of any? )

b) Projections indicate they should last well over 10 years, which is why the manufacturers met California's warranty requirements. One site that indicated their engineers said an upper end of 15years may be realized... but they really don't know yet... just not enough empirical data beyond the Prius's mentioned in (a).

c) Comparisons with older electric cars' battery life are also not valid, since they didn't have the software management that the newer systems have.

d) Apparently there was a IEEE article on the subject of battery life in hybrids... anyone have a link or synopsis?

Cheers