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Prius Battery Replacement (GenII) Like you've never seen - NEW Cylindrical Cells

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by 2k1Toaster, Jul 17, 2017.

  1. GasperG

    GasperG Senior Member

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    Ouch, then you are quickly over the price of the Toyota pack. With VAT (22%) and customs (10%) you are quickly approaching $3.000.
     
  2. Prodigyplace

    Prodigyplace Senior Member

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    I assume there is no way @2k1Toaster could have it shipped from China to you. That could avoid much of the fees
     
  3. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    Not really. VAT and duties are based on the value of the product, doesn't matter where it comes from. When you buy a battery in the EU you are going to pay VAT and duties if it is coming from outside the EU. Just like the US, we pay duty and now tariffs on every pack imported because they are made outside the US.

    I have shipped larger orders from China to customers in the middle east. Really 20-50 packs is the minimum to make that work though.

    I'm curious what the current price for a Toyota replacement pack is. It used to be much much higher because even Toyota has to pay duties and taxes.
     
  4. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    @2k1Toaster - after Nissan secretly raised their replacement pack price from $5,000 to $8,000 on their junkie little version 1 traction pack, it seems like there might be a good opportunity for another profit Center. After all, it doesn't take much to burnout those little things, since they were so poorly thermally managed.
    .
     
    #464 hill, Nov 16, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2018
  5. Prodigyplace

    Prodigyplace Senior Member

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    I have seen some people claim $1700, $2500 installed.
     
  6. kenoarto

    kenoarto Senior Member

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  7. Prodigyplace

    Prodigyplace Senior Member

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    shipped? or is that a nationwide price that dealers must sell to individuals?
     
  8. kenoarto

    kenoarto Senior Member

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    $1625 needs to be shopped--I found it at select Toyota dealers in the south, west, midwest and east. $1699 is an easier (but not easy) price to find. Plus there's a $1350 fully refunded deposit on the old battery until you return it to the dealer. As you know, no genuine Toyota dealer is willing to ship these things, but this vendor includes shipping in his price. Notes: 1) the oldest of these new-style batteries have only been tested for about a year. 2) There are reports about one of the major cables not fitting correctly.
     
  9. prnico

    prnico Junior Member

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    In my experience in France, when you make online purchases for small-ish foreign items valued, say, up to a couple of hundred euros, anything from China seems to arrive directly to your mailbox, whereas stuff from the US or Australia, for example, gets systematically intercepted and held hostage until you drive miles out of your way to go and pay significant custom duties.

    I haven't asked for a quote myself, and it might depend on the area, but from perusing other chat forums, it would appear that Toyota dealers in France have recently charged well under 2000 euros for a replacement battery pack without installation so it looks like this might be the most logical choice for us.
     
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  10. egg_salad

    egg_salad Active Member

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  11. Mavi

    Mavi Active Member

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    Just wanted to leave a review here: I purchased a battery around 2 months ago, and got it last month. Since then I've driven the battery for around 1500 miles. These are high quality cells, the customer service is bar none (must have sent 20 emails back to forth to Toaster), and best of all I sold my existing pack piece meal on craigslist and ebay. Ended up subsidizing my purchase quite a bit. My brothers prius battery just failed, and I told him to skip the rehab and just purchase one of these if he decides to keep the car. I'll update with a longer term review a year out.
     
  12. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Long overdue, bookmarked:

    upload_2018-11-22_11-4-3.png
     
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  13. James1964

    James1964 Member

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    Got a pic of this on the fridge! Stuck with the Dorman for now as it came with the 05.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
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  14. James1964

    James1964 Member

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    Was it difficult to piece out your old battery? Is a fairly new, well running Dorman a good candidate for that route? I'd love to hasten the process of getting one of these in our 05.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
  15. toymo

    toymo Junior Member

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    Q1. If this isn't your first rodeo then you'll be okay.
    Q2. Any "reman" (Dorman, etc) will eventually be out moded by these factory new aftermarket offerings.

    My recently self-rebuilt "whack-a-pack" in Apr 2017 on my Gen2 is still going strong so may take a few years more before I switch over to the OP's custom Made-In-China ones. Thanks for your courage and entrepreneurial spirit.

    QUESTION - Has anyone thought up or experimented with ingenious solutions for cooling the cylindrical modules?
     
  16. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    if you consider the Prius battery is what .... maybe 3 kwh, including upper & lower buffer? Just thinking - per kWh - this is maybe $600/kWh or more?
    it blows me away - GM / LG arrangement is ~$150/kWh in the Bolt? I do not know how they do it.
    .
     
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  17. mjoo

    mjoo Senior Member

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    It's a 1.4kw battery with a different battery chemistry

    Pixel XL ?
     
  18. toymo

    toymo Junior Member

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    I 2nd this per the math but I've seen my Prius push more amps than rated so... moot point. NiMH is done. Lithium-ion base batteries are the future.
     
  19. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    I have yet to see anyone get that priced shipped. My question on pricing was in the EU as noted by my mention of VAT to the poster in France. Toyota has to pay that as well, so I am curious what a parts-counter price is in the EU.

    False. The oldest ones sold to the public are just over a year (Sep 2017). I've had time and mileage in mine both before and after it was made public. Similarly these modules have been in use in other pre-public vehicles for longer than that. And with mileage we've had lots of 6-digit miles recorded so far.

    That would be a pretty bad way of twisting words. The safety interconnect plug wires that connect to the modules are about 10mm offset from where they are in the original setup. So you can either force them on, or if you move the cable backwards a bit into the ECU area it fits like a glove. There is extra slack wire in there anyways, you just have to take an extra minute to do it if you want perfect 90 degree angles.

    1.3KWh NiMH battery in the Prius. It's over $1200/KWh. Raw manufacturing costs are still in the $500/KWh range, just the raw cells.

    You can thank Tesla for bringing lithium prices down to the $150/KWh range. It is the future. But we do have millions of these legacy vehicles on the road with legacy packs. Retrofitting to lithium would be a huge cost increase, more than the car is worth. :(
     
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  20. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    Yeah that's a shame. I have one of those junkie 24KWh Leafs and the price of the new battery is higher than what an entire used vehicle goes for and is half the cost of what I paid for the whole car! Unfortunately the thermal management is so poor that even if I were to create a replacement pack, it wouldn't really last very long either. They are going to get hot, and there's no way to get the heat out. :(

    My guess is that the Gen-1 (and Gen-2) Leafs will end up mostly scrapped in junkyards, or used as driver training vehicles, or glorified golf carts carrying people around resorts. When the battery "dies" it can usually still limp around just not very fast or far which would make it work there.