Currently hot: Replacement Hybrid Battery Costs Plummet (Dugg!)

[MetroMPG]

This one popped on Digg today...

Replacement Hybrid Battery Costs Plummet

In the early part of this decade, some of the biggest worries about hybrids were how could the batteries possibly last, when would they finally give out, and how much would it cost to have them replaced. These days, concerns about batteries have largely faded out of the minds of new car buyers. Honda and Toyota have both had hybrids on the market for about a decade now, and there are no ominous junkyards filled with dead hybrids.

Honda and Toyota have both announced drastic cuts to the cost of replacement batteries for their hybrids. It will now cost just under $2,000 to have new batteries installed in you Honda Insight, and just under $2,500 for your Accord hybrid. These are about $1,000 reductions in the cost. Toyota, on the other hand, has dropped prices from ~$5,500 to $3,000, but that doesn’t include the installation, so the real cost is likely a bit more.

Full entry: http://www.ecomodder.com/blog/2008/0...costs-plummet/

[MetroMPG]

What I find interesting, even though it's not a proper comparison, is that a new pack of lead acid batts to power the ForkenSwift 30-40 miles on a charge would be about half the price of the cheapest hybrid replacment pack listed above.

Of course, the lead pack would be toast after about 10-20k miles; where the hybrid packs, with careful state of charge (SOC) management, are lasting many hundreds of thousands of miles in some cases..

[Red]

But for the Insight, does the new pack cover the updated BCM and MCM as well? Those two normally add a good $1500 bucks to the purchase price.

I'm still a fan of picking up a HCH's battery pack and gutting it for replacement cells.

[cfg83]

MetroMPG -

This has been my on of my "cross my finger" bets for a long time. I haven't been worrying about the price of batteries because of their need in other technology. Here's my Connections show POV :

Space program microcircuittry miniaturization
-> Desktop PCs
-> Laptops
-> Battery miniaturization
-> Other consumer goods battery miniaturization
-> Hybrid cars

And the push for cheaper, lighter batteries will continue in service to Moore's Law regardless of Hybrid cars. Soooooooooooooooooooooo, thar bee good things coming!

CarloSW2