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Replacement batteries - are there brand-new cells now?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by kkeane, Sep 1, 2019.

  1. kkeane

    kkeane Junior Member

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    I used to own and love a Prius. Eventually, it needed a battery replacement. At the time, common knowledge was that all aftermarket replacement batteries were rebuilt from old cells, and that Toyota/Panasonic had a monopoly on new cells.

    Out of curiosity, I recently looked up batteries again, and I started seeing some aftermarket vendors advertise brand-new cells. Are those for real? What has changed? And where would these new cells come from?

    I've seen two or three places claim "new cells". One example is 2004-2009 Toyota Prius Gen 2 Hybrid Battery, Unlimited Mileage Warranty | Greentec Auto
     
    #1 kkeane, Sep 1, 2019
  2. davecook89t

    davecook89t Senior Member

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    The price in the ad, $1,850, is similar to what some are paying for a brand new battery from a Toyota dealer, so I guess it's possible their battery does contain new modules. Not all dealers are willing to sell for that price or ship to your location, so it's possible Greentec could find some customers that are not currently being well served by the Toyota dealer network. It would be interesting to hear from someone who had actually purchased one of those batteries from Greentec.
     
    #2 davecook89t, Sep 1, 2019
    strawbrad likes this.
  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    are you asking about individual cell availability, or a whole battery containing new cells
     
    #3 bisco, Sep 1, 2019
  4. kkeane

    kkeane Junior Member

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    Either, really. The ads I had seen so far all were for whole batteries claiming to contain new cells.
     
    #4 kkeane, Sep 15, 2019
  5. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    New cells have existed since about 2007-ish. Yabo and CEBA are the makers. Yabo makes ones that are drop in replacements. CEBA makes cylindrical modules. Testing those modules show that they are about 2Ah to 3.5Ah capacities even though they are marked as 6.5Ah ontop.

    Noticing this, we made new cells. Making prismatics is more expensive than cylindrical. So we make cylindrical modules. We then buy the plastic caps from CEBA and sell those. Our modules are marked 6.5Ah and measure 6.5Ah (or better).

    We have recently seen a lot more CEBA packs on the markets, under different names. It is not impossible to setup a new battery factory, we did. But it is pretty expensive and you need good contacts around the world. We've also seen them mark the top with whatever they want. There are companies now selling 8.5Ah modules... Yeah, they aren't. They test at less than half of that. But they are marked ontop much higher.
     
    #5 2k1Toaster, Sep 15, 2019
    Skibob and Raytheeagle like this.
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