Hope I'm making the right decision

Now I have to find where I got the 1 in 40 number while you find where over a million Prius have over 100,000 miles on them.

 

Sorry, I stand corrected, I meant my comment to be a theoretical one. There are a lot of Prius on the road (and I have no idea as to how many there are worldwide) and "IF" 1 in 40 have batteries that fail at 100K miles then I don't want one. However I'm having a hard time believing that statistic anyway.

 

Darn, now THAT I can answer.
Toyota Prius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
has good sales data though 2007 and some 2008 and 2009 data.

I bet this is the source of the 1 in 40 number. From May of 2008. The author guesses 1 in 40 is just 23 Gen II Prius battery failures. Toyota should have good numbers on battery failure before 100,000 miles as that is a warranty repair in all states. After that, owners may be buying batteries elsewhere, so Toyota would not have definitive numbers.
Some Hard Figures on Hybrid Battery Replacement ~ Hybrid Car Review

Here is another citing 17 in 'over 10,000' but no mention of miles.
http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mellor.nsf/story2/47ACB3101815707DCA2574B600815A6F

It is amusing to me, that there is a 'glut' of used Prius batteries on Ebay, as far more Prius are totaled in accidents than have battery failure, so used batteries are cheap and easy to find.

 

The referenced "Hybrid Car Review" article cites Toyota as saying that the Gen II post-warranty failure rate is .003%, which the author calculates as 1 in 40,000. Do the math and it's about 1.2 failures in 40,000. That's a long way from 1 in 40!

 

huh? What's a "post-warranty failure rate"???? I would expect that to be 100% as, eventually, all batteries will fail after warranty. Might that be a "during warranty" failure rate?

"No one gets out alive."

 

Good point, although most Prius are still on the road. I suppose if the car dies from something else, the battery gets a pass.

Tom

 

Your second link states:

Failure Rate of Hybrid Battery Packs
Toyota says their battery failure rate (after warranty) for their second generation Prius (2004 model year and up) is 0.003 percent which equates to 1 every 40,000.

I like that number a lot better than 1 in 40. Also, this is indeed for cars with over 100,000 miles. I'm guessing the majority of people needing a new battery are not installing it themselves with an eBay replacement. (No data, just a guess.)

 

One fact about the battery. Toyota's extended warranty does not even cover the battery. Why? It's because the battery has a very long coverage by the factory. There is no extended warranty that is long enough to beat the factory coverage.

This shows how confident they are about their batteries.

 

Your other concerns have been covered.

If you're primary objective is the lowest total cost of ownership, the Prius will not win based on present costs, and it's unlikely to win on projected costs over the life of a car bought now. Like thousands of others, I did the calcs (loaded Fit vs Prius IV - yes, I realize they're not equivalents but a loaded Fit is all I need), and unless gas averages about $11/gal for the next 7 years it won't pay. Gas will hit $11/gal someday, but I sure wouldn't bet on it as an average for the next 7 years. Even if you chose cars that are more comparable, and closer in purchase price, you can't realistically make the case for the Prius.

You buy a Prius because because you value lower emissions, feel a responsibility to minimize your use of gas, like the Prius technology, want to make a statement and/or just like the price/utility/reliability of the Prius vs other viable choices. If you think about it, total cost of ownership is rarely the motivation to purchase most cars - if it was, our choices would be vastly different than what you see in most showrooms.

 

Believe it or not, but cost of ownership is the reason I bought one. My wife drives up to 100 miles a day and likes her CTS-V Caddillac. High performance run flat tires for it cost about $1,000 a set and you need a new set every year, Averages around 20 MPG, but requires premium fuel. Darn thing is expensive to drive that much. I can only imagine what it cost to drive an SUV that much.
Had her driving a Miata for a couple of years, but it's two passenger and not much good for groceries etc.
The Prius will do everything I need a vehicle to do except tow, and for that rare occasion, I have kept my C3500 PU.
The math may not work, but money going to fuel and tires seems to be money wasted, at least with the Prius I have something to show for it.