ARE WE LOOKING AT A FUTURE LITHIUM ION PACK FAILURE TOO?

Well, if Toyota lets me replace/upgrade my batteries in a few years for $29, then OK by me.

But.... cars / phones. Apples (sic) and oranges. The batteries in your car are protected by charging up to only 80% capacity, and can be depleted no lower than 20%. That keeps them in the healthy range, and for a long time. That's for Li-Ion or Nickel Metal Hydride. That was the great learning curve that car manufacturers had to get through before releasing the things to the public. Sure, there could be an individual cell failures - it has happened - it will happen. But the tech is largely understood and considered when brought to the market. And that tech will always get better.

Tesla, for example, has about a 7%, on average, battery degradation over 200,000 miles. And that's for the more originally installed batteries on older Model S'. I'll bet the prismatic cells in Toyota's don't do much worse. There are Prius cabs that have done 350,000 miles on the original hybrid traction battery. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

EDIT: BTW, I also had a 2010 Gen3 for eight seasons. Loved it. Best car I ever had. In the end, and before I bought the Prime, it was losing its mileage edge. Could have been the traction batteries. Could have been the 2nd 12v battery getting older. Could have been that every other part of the car was getting older and wearing out. Could have been ALL those thing added together. I never really worried about any of it, because that's what cars do as they age. Then the new car arrives.

 

Toyota has much more experience designing battery systems for longevity. Apple is concerned primarily with physical size and not longevity.

 

First off this is nothing new. If this is news to you, you need to research what you're buying more. Apple made a stupid choice like they usually do by limiting current draw without user input. On most devices you'll notice the charge just doesn't last as long. It is designed so that it can pull max current even with an almost dead battery. But when it can't, it just shuts off unless plugged in. Have you never had a laptop that becomes tethered to the wall? Same thing. I prefer manufactures that let me choose what to do.

What problem? That's the design. Lithium batteries have a memory effect and aging effect. It is a big box of chemical goo. Over time, the magic parts of the goo fade away. So of course, anything with a base Lithium design like all batteries will eventually lose capacity.

Lots of cars have already done this. Put in X KWh of battery, market it as having (X-Y) KWh of battery and as the battery degrades over time it uses more of the SOC faking the aging.

No.

Cooling methods have nothing to do with it.

A little bit of knowledge can be scary. This problem is as old as the oldest batteries. Everyone has seen this effect for themselves already. This isn't the news.

The takeaway from the Apple thing, is that they unilaterally decided that instead of making the battery discharge extremely quickly but retain full functionality, they crippled the devices to extend battery life. And of course the effected devices are still quite new so the conspiracy theorists say this is a move to force an upgrade. All that is just Apple being Apple. Absolutely no different than adding $1 worth of IC's into a stupid charger cable just so that you have to buy a genuine cable meaning for $$$ for Apple. Copper is copper, but the phone will refuse to use the copper unless it is authenticated. Do you really expect quality when buying a $0.20 charging cable? Of course not.

Lithium ion batteries used in phones are similar but very different than all the various cocktails of lithium that cars use now adays.

And yes, the cold (and heat) degrades a battery and how much current can be pulled from and pushed into a battery. This is why fast charging standards (like CHAdeMO) drop charge rates when it is cold or hot. Also why cars have heaters in the pack.The Leaf for instance has electric heaters built into the electric battery pack. When it gets to -20C outside, the heaters kick in and use some battery power to heat themselves up to prevent them from being too cold to be usable.

And while we are on that subject, the same thing happens to gas and diesel cars. Ever try to start a gasser at -40 or -60? If the lead acid battery hasn't frozen and/or exploded the fuel lines may be frozen and the engine itself will take quite the beating. So we solve it the same way. Add a little resistive heater to the block and fuel lines and plug in the gasser even when off. Really old tech, solving the same problem.

 

@Dxta I believe @2k1Toaster works on battery system design or a profession. He is definitely one of the more battery-savvy folks here.
You would do well to listen to him.

 

my 5 1/2 year old li-on battery has already lost capacity, and i'm down 33% in this cold. is this what you are referring to, and what would apple's solution do to help me?

 

Likely that you don't KNOW that for sure.

Whatever indications you are using to come to that conclusion might be misleading.

 

just the joy i get from being part of this community.

 

Was there some sort of 4th gen "white paper", saying something about the lithium ion battery models not starting (by design), at extreme low temperatures, say -30C ish?

Interesting link. Not sure if there's anything relevant to this thread, but lots of info, and links to high-res image downloads:

Under the Hood of the All-new Toyota Prius | TOYOTA Global Newsroom

 

what could they be? the car doesn't travel as far as it used to on ev.

 

Here is one posting quoting a Toyota rep.

Battery Differences? | PriusChat

Here is a quote from the article.

 

Yeah, could even be the car just reads ambient temp and it's programming prevents start up, a safety criteria?

 

Can anyone suggest a good battery tutorial? I want to learn more.

 

According to my interpretation, it is the cold soak of the battery and, likely, reduced capacity.

 

Batteries do not charge or discharge as efficiently when they are cold.
Maybe you are driving it differently.
Maybe there is a constant headwind.
Maybe a belly pan has fallen off and you have more aero drag than before.
Maybe your brakes are dragging.
Maybe a connection or two is starting to corrode.

It is called "Jumping to a conclusion".

 

Why is this a Gen 3 thread?
No nonPHEV Gen 3 even has a Lithium Ion battery. It can't possibly affect your Gen.
Should you panic about future Prius, the Gen 4 offers NiMH in the level Two Prius.

I question why the ALL CAPS panic for cars you don't have. It seems like trolling.

 

read my post again, i said, 'in the cold'.

the rest, you don't know. spend some time in the pip forum with all the experienced 'conclusion jumper'.