Both Toyota and Honda make excellent cars. The motors, the bodywork, the interiors, the transmissions, the electrical bits, all first rate. Sure, there are occasional problems, some expensive to fix, and sure, items wear out and have to be replaced, but both companies build cars that can be driven 150,000; 200,000 perhaps as much as 300,000 miles with a little love and care.
Both Toyota and Honda make excellent cars. The motors, the bodywork, the interiors, the transmissions, the electrical bits, all first rate. Sure, there are occasional problems, some expensive to fix, and sure, items wear out and have to be replaced, but both companies build cars that can be driven 150,000; 200,000 perhaps as much as 300,000 miles with a little love and care.
The quality the companies build into their cars is spread throughout their model range – including hybrids. There’s no reason to think the hybrids shouldn’t be as long-lived as the companies’ conventional cars. That is, except for one particular part – the battery pack.
!ADVERTISEMENT!
Both of the leading sellers of hybrids offer long warranties for the hybrid components which includes the nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery packs. For the newest Prius (Toyota’s most popular hybrid and the world’s most popular) Toyota covers hybrid-related components for 8 years or 100,000 miles. But the company also says that the battery may have longer coverage under emissions warranty. (Some states require this.) Honda, for its Civic Hybrid. gives its integrated motor assist (IMA) battery pack an 8-year or 80,000-mile warranty, or a 10-year or 150,000-mile warranty in California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York or Vermont. Honda says “See your dealer for details.â€
( I have no idea of how hybrid component and battery pack warranties are handled in markets outside the US.)
It may very well be that the battery packs will long outlast the vehicles’ respective warranties, and so far there have been no reports of wide-scale premature battery failure. Most news about the battery packs is that they’re exceeding expectations for longevity. But it’s hard to imagine the batteries lasting as long as the potential life – perhaps as much as 300,000 miles – as the rest of the vehicle.
And therein lies the problem. The high cost of replacing the stock battery pack may shorten the life span of an otherwise good car. A brand new, fully warranted battery pack for a second generation Prius can sell for slightly over $4000 from a dealership parts counter. Installation would be more. If you’re the owner of a high mileage but still mostly serviceable and reliable car, that’s a big check to write. A good car might be scrapped because of the high cost of one component part.
Since the launch of hybrids in the marketplace automakers have hoped that the cost of the NiMH batteries would drop. It hasn’t. It was hoped, too, that a remanufacturing industry for the batteries would emerge. It hasn’t.
There are some solutions for still serviceable hybrids with a dead battery pack. One would be to spend even more money and convert the car to a plug-in hybrid with a lithium-ion battery pack. But that, as they say, may be putting good money after bad. Converted it would be an old car with an expensive battery pack. Other problems could occur. Prices on conversions - kits only, no installation - range from $6000 - 24,000, and available just for Prius and Escape Hybrid.
There may be another option available if Axion Power International is successful in its experiment. The New Castle, Pennsylvania company is working on a project to replace the NiMH battery systems in a pair of Honda Civic Hybrids with a less expensive and comparably-sized PbC battery alternative.
PbC (lead carbon) is a battery design Axion is developing that uses sophisticated carbon electrode assemblies to replace the simple lead-based negative electrodes used by most lead-acid battery manufacturers. The resulting device offers energy storage approaching lead-acid batteries, coupled with longer cycle-life and power output approaching super-capacitors, the company says. These low-cost devices recharge rapidly and are environmentally friendly because they use 40 percent less lead than a conventional battery. The carbon electrode assemblies are designed to fit neatly into the manufacturing processes for standard lead acid batteries. Lead acid battery manufacturers could easily make the switch.
Mass produced PbC batteries should sell for considerably less than NiMH batteries, thus making a new battery pack for an old hybrid an economically smart idea.
Testing protocols for the Axion battery equipped Civic Hybrids are being finalized with Pennsylvania State University and will include data from upwards of 100,000 miles of road tests. In the second phase of the hybrid project, Axion will add a Toyota Prius and other hybrids to the test regime.
As of the end of November 2007 Toyota had sold more than 500,000 first and second generation Prius hybrids in the US. Overall hybrid sales – all brands – could reach over a million a year by 2010. All of them will eventually get old and could need a new battery pack. Axion might have a product ready to make a cost-friendly swap feasible when that time comes.
However the stock battery packs manufacturers put in the cars on the assembly line could very well live as long as the rest of the car, and never need replacement during the hybrid’s lifetime. If so, proven long life for stock hybrid battery packs would be good news and a significant boost for hybrid sales. Only time will tell. Certainly Honda, Toyota and other hybrid makers will let us know.
