When Toyota's Prius first hit Japanese showrooms in 1997, I was highly skeptical that hybrids would catch on. Not only was the technology really expensive, I thought the nickel-metal hydride batteries would prove to be the Achilles Heel in the system. Sooner or later you'd be facing an expensive replacement bill, right?
Well, here we are more than a decade later and those batteries are proving to be amazingly reliable. Toyota now has sold over 520,000 hybrids in just the American market. Honda has sold over 300,000 worldwide. Ford is just about to break through the 100,000 mark. The only reason they could sell so many hybrids is that the technology is working exactly like it's supposed to, including the batteries.
The key to their longevity is that these batteries do no go through deep discharges. They still retain something like 40% charge when the engine comes on to re-charge them. But it may be possible to push that envelope. Though Ford isn't talking, some believe it got such jaw-dropping fuel economy numbers with the new Fusion hybrid by pushing the battery into deeper discharges.
Toyota did tell me that for out-of-warranty customers the failure rate is only 1 out of 35,000. That's a pretty impressive number, but it also translates into a parts-per-million failure rate of 28. I know Toyota pushes its suppliers to hit a PPM rate of 10 or less, so as good as it is, I'm sure Toyota is pushing for better durability.
Toyota sells all its returned batteries at very low cost to Kinsbursky Brothers, a huge recycling company in Anaheim, California. In fact, Toyota started recycling batteries with them in 1998 when it sold the EV RAV-4 in California.
The nickel-metal hydride battery is about to be challenged by lithium-ion. There are plenty of questions about the durability, reliability and cost of these new batteries. Perhaps they will prove to be as good as the nickel-metal ones. But right now they're much more expensive, and it takes more energy to recycle lithium than it does to get virgin lithium. As a result, there is no market for post-consumer lithium. That's why some automakers, notably Toyota, believe that nickel-metal batteries will be around for a long time to come.
Source: Autoline on Autoblog with John McElroy - Autoblog
I only picked the paragraphs that I found interesting. Follow the link to read the entire article.
Hybrid batteries surpass all expectations
Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by usbseawolf2000, Feb 21, 2009.
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Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by usbseawolf2000, Feb 21, 2009.
