The hybrid ticking time bomb

[JSH]

Originally Posted by GrayRaceCat

At the link you provided, they're not exactly low cost, 28 modules are $1,986.88 US plus Taxes, Shipping. (and Labor, unless you install them yourself) (price - Aug 19, 2022)

It is cheap compared to a remanufactured transmission. Not an old 3 speed but a modern CVT or 7+ Speed that are in 80% of cars sold in 2020. (See my thread on the 2021 Vehicle Trend Report)

[Isaac Zachary]

Of course it also comes down to longevity.

Part of starting this thread is the assumption that an HV battery is going to quit at about 15 years. I think you, JSH, commented that the average may be more like 18 or more years. My insignificant experience was I bought a Prius that had lost it's battery at 213K miles and 14 years.

If there were another part of any other vehicle, say a CVT or 9 speed transmission, that was known to fail at around 200K miles or 15 years then the vehicle would probably lose value towards that point, especially if it were dead expensive to repair to the point of being destined to the junk yard only.

It's nice to see claims that battery tech is getting way better. Tesla batteries will supposedly last 300K to 500K miles, for an example.

Something else that hasn't been brought up is what can a person do to make their batteries last on an old hybrid? With an engine you can change the oil often and drive it moderately, for an example. You can do the same with a gear transmission (I'm not sure what makes CVT's fail).

But what about a battery? I've heard of people drilling into their Prius batteries and topping off the electrolyte with distilled water or some special chemical solution and then sealing those holes back up. There are also people who put their hybrid batteries through a deep cycle. But the thing is that batteries are made to be maintenance free.

What about better battery cooling? Some have tricked their battery cooling fan into staying on full time. Would setting the battery in a bath of mineral oil and pumping that through a radiator be worth it? Or adding a duct of some sort from the A/C unit to the battery cooling duct?

[Snax]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Something else that hasn't been brought up is what can a person do to make their batteries last on an old hybrid?

Thermal management is a significant issue. On EVs, it's active while charging, while discharging, and sometimes before even leaving (pre-conditioning). Batteries in extremely warm climates and extreme cold climates simply do not hold up as well as in more temperate places.

I believe there is a simple limit to what is practical there. As far as I know, no hybrid actively manages cooling and heating any time other than when the vehicle is actually running. How well they manage the charge and discharge cycle before nominal specs are achieved is going to have an impact.

[Ecky]

Thermal issues are one of the major reasons Civic hybrid batteries had high failure rates. I've known people to upgrade the fans in their Insight batteries. Probably the kindest thing you could do for your battery would be to move to coastal California or PNW.

[S Keith]

Originally Posted by Ecky

For a short while Honda's replacement G1 packs had "PrimeEarth" branded sticks. I'm curious how and why that ended.

Sanyo sticks weren't compatible with G1 battery management algorithm, and Primearth was still making replacements.

I should have clarified that my "history" was for new packs in new cars unless explicitly identified as replacement.

[S Keith]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Thanks for the info! I had no idea of the history or current situation for Toyota NiMh batteries except that there may be supply chain issues or something.

All I know is I went to check the current price of an OEM HV battery for my Prius on parts.Toyota.com and say the batteries marked as "No longer available." Knowing the gen 3 batteries has basically the same modules I also looked up a couple years of gen 3 Prii and also saw them marked as "No longer available." Of course that doesn't mean that it could be from supply shortages or something, as I'm no expert on what's actually happening.

2006 Toyota Prius Hatchback Battery assembly hv supply. Electrical, wiring, cable - G951047031 - Genuine Toyota Part

https://parts.camelbacktoyota.com/oe...ery-g951047031

Originally Posted by Ecky

Thermal issues are one of the major reasons Civic hybrid batteries had high failure rates. I've known people to upgrade the fans in their Insight batteries. Probably the kindest thing you could do for your battery would be to move to coastal California or PNW.

The 03-05 was okay - a little worse than the Insight. They retained the baffles that helped with cell cooling. In the '06-09, they added 12 cells and made the pack notably more compact - no baffles. The cells were simply staggered. This insured that all 132 cells got terrible cooling as 2/3 of the circumference of the cell opposite the inlet direction received no cooling at all. In 09, they tried to address this by increasing the gap... they just created a more pronounced temperature gradient across the cell.

It didn't help that they went with a hybrid mechanical/electric compressor in the 06-11. That added strain on the battery increased the cycle depth and count.

Mild climate FTW.

[GrayRaceCat]

Originally Posted by JSH

It is cheap compared to a remanufactured transmission. Not an old 3 speed but a modern CVT or 7+ Speed that are in 80% of cars sold in 2020. (See my thread on the 2021 Vehicle Trend Report)

When comparing apples to apples, Prius modules to Prius modules, no, they are close to OE, almost 3 times the Chinese modules. At that price, I'd wait for the next release of OE batteries if I needed one.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Of course it also comes down to longevity.

Part of starting this thread is the assumption that an HV battery is going to quit at about 15 years. I think you, JSH, commented that the average may be more like 18 or more years. My insignificant experience was I bought a Prius that had lost it's battery at 213K miles and 14 years.

You bought a vehicle with more miles than 98.5% of the vehicle sold in 2021. That is what I keep coming back to. A vehicle that old or with that many miles has reached useful life. Actually past useful life as defined by regulations and industry (150,000 miles). It has almost no remaining value and anymore years of use is a bonus. Manufacturers could make light-duty vehicles with a useful life of 450,000 miles like a commercial Class 8 truck but none of the stake-holders have any reason to do so and cars would be much more expensive.

1. Manufacturers care about their customers - the original owner. They also have no financial incentive to make cars that last decades past the original owner. They also have no incentive to make cars that last longer than customers really want to drive them. Sure some people are happy driving an air-cooled bug but most drivers want modern features.
2. The initial buyer has no financial incentive to pay more for a car so that the 3,4, or 5th owner can drive more miles on the cheap.
3. Regulators have no incentive to keep cars on the roads for decades. Regulators want to refresh the fleet periodically to get cleaner, more fuel efficient, and safer cars on the road.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

If there were another part of any other vehicle, say a CVT or 9 speed transmission, that was known to fail at around 200K miles or 15 years then the vehicle would probably lose value towards that point, especially if it were dead expensive to repair to the point of being destined to the junk yard only.

There are lots of other expensive components on old cars that are known to fail at 15 years / 200K miles. That is why old cars have depreciated by 90 - 95%.

I sold my 2003 Jetta Wagon TDI when it was 10 years old with 245K miles for $3,000. Nothing wrong with it at the time but that was only 10.5% of the original purchase price. If it had been a Jetta with the gas engine and an automatic it would have been worth about $1500 with those miles.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

Something else that hasn't been brought up is what can a person do to make their batteries last on an old hybrid? With an engine you can change the oil often and drive it moderately, for an example. You can do the same with a gear transmission (I'm not sure what makes CVT's fail).

You can change the fluid in a transmission all you want but you aren't going to replace the friction material in the clutches (a 10 speed has 6) If you are talking manual transmissions well those are about as rare as unicorns today. Manuals are down to 1% of new vehicle sales.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

But what about a battery? I've heard of people drilling into their Prius batteries and topping off the electrolyte with distilled water or some special chemical solution and then sealing those holes back up. There are also people who put their hybrid batteries through a deep cycle. But the thing is that batteries are made to be maintenance free.

The biggest enemies of battery life are cycles, heat and time.

With cycles you want to keep them as small as possible. For example cycling a battery to 10% you can get 15,000 cycles mile cycling a battery 100% will drop that to 600 cycles. (For a LiPO4 battery) This is why the 2nd Gen Prius only allowed 40% of battery capacity to be used. You also want to stay away from the bottom of the discharge curve and the top - you want to use the capacity in the middle not the extremes.

This is why the EV button was mentioned as a battery killer - EV miles on a hybrid are much harder on the battery than hybrid miles. Want to kill a PHEV battery fast - cycle the battery fully twice every day. With an EV about the worst thing you can do to the battery is exactly what the cannonballers recommend to make time quickly an EV - only use the bottom 50 to 60% of the battery capacity and quick charge it every stop. For long EV battery life you want to use the middle capacity and slow charge every night.

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

What about better battery cooling? Some have tricked their battery cooling fan into staying on full time. Would setting the battery in a bath of mineral oil and pumping that through a radiator be worth it? Or adding a duct of some sort from the A/C unit to the battery cooling duct?

As I mentioned - heat is the enemy of a battery so cooling is important. Some early hybrids took this to the extreme. The early Ford Escape hybrid only allowed the battery to use the 40 - 53% SOC and had an A/C circuit for the battery. It had rock-solid hybrid battery life. Later models ditched the A/C circuit and relied on a fan to pull cabin air through the battery. Not as much air flow and most owners never changed the battery air filter so it clogged up and blocked off airflow. 2nd Gen Prius batteries also relied on fans and cabin air to cool them. They were also know to have clogged vents. Don't let the vent get clogged.

Of course ambient temps matter too. Don't let the car sit outside in Arizona in an uncovered asphalt parking lot so the car heat soaks to 140 / 150 degrees all day. Park in the shade, in a parking garage, in a garage at home. If you have to park outside vent the car and use sunshades. Some hybrids have powered sunroofs to keep the car interior cooler. Once you are in the car and driving use the A/C instead of rolling down the windows to lower the interior temperature and push cooler air through the battery.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by JSH

You bought a vehicle with more miles than 98.5% of the vehicle sold in 2021. That is what I keep coming back to. A vehicle that old or with that many miles has reached useful life. Actually past useful life as defined by regulations and industry (150,000 miles). It has almost no remaining value and anymore years of use is a bonus. Manufacturers could make light-duty vehicles with a useful life of 450,000 miles like a commercial Class 8 truck but none of the stake-holders have any reason to do so and cars would be much more expensive.

1. Manufacturers care about their customers - the original owner. They also have no financial incentive to make cars that last decades past the original owner. They also have no incentive to make cars that last longer than customers really want to drive them. Sure some people are happy driving an air-cooled bug but most drivers want modern features.
2. The initial buyer has no financial incentive to pay more for a car so that the 3,4, or 5th owner can drive more miles on the cheap.
3. Regulators have no incentive to keep cars on the roads for decades. Regulators want to refresh the fleet periodically to get cleaner, more fuel efficient, and safer cars on the road.

There are lots of other expensive components on old cars that are known to fail at 15 years / 200K miles. That is why old cars have depreciated by 90 - 95%.

I sold my 2003 Jetta Wagon TDI when it was 10 years old with 245K miles for $3,000. Nothing wrong with it at the time but that was only 10.5% of the original purchase price. If it had been a Jetta with the gas engine and an automatic it would have been worth about $1500 with those miles.




You can change the fluid in a transmission all you want but you aren't going to replace the friction material in the clutches (a 10 speed has 6) If you are talking manual transmissions well those are about as rare as unicorns today. Manuals are down to 1% of new vehicle sales.



The biggest enemies of battery life are cycles, heat and time.

With cycles you want to keep them as small as possible. For example cycling a battery to 10% you can get 15,000 cycles mile cycling a battery 100% will drop that to 600 cycles. (For a LiPO4 battery) This is why the 2nd Gen Prius only allowed 40% of battery capacity to be used. You also want to stay away from the bottom of the discharge curve and the top - you want to use the capacity in the middle not the extremes.

This is why the EV button was mentioned as a battery killer - EV miles on a hybrid are much harder on the battery than hybrid miles. Want to kill a PHEV battery fast - cycle the battery fully twice every day. With an EV about the worst thing you can do to the battery is exactly what the cannonballers recommend to make time quickly an EV - only use the bottom 50 to 60% of the battery capacity and quick charge it every stop. For long EV battery life you want to use the middle capacity and slow charge every night.




As I mentioned - heat is the enemy of a battery so cooling is important. Some early hybrids took this to the extreme. The early Ford Escape hybrid only allowed the battery to use the 40 - 53% SOC and had an A/C circuit for the battery. It had rock-solid hybrid battery life. Later models ditched the A/C circuit and relied on a fan to pull cabin air through the battery. Not as much air flow and most owners never changed the battery air filter so it clogged up and blocked off airflow. 2nd Gen Prius batteries also relied on fans and cabin air to cool them. They were also know to have clogged vents. Don't let the vent get clogged.

Of course ambient temps matter too. Don't let the car sit outside in Arizona in an uncovered asphalt parking lot so the car heat soaks to 140 / 150 degrees all day. Park in the shade, in a parking garage, in a garage at home. If you have to park outside vent the car and use sunshades. Some hybrids have powered sunroofs to keep the car interior cooler. Once you are in the car and driving use the A/C instead of rolling down the windows to lower the interior temperature and push cooler air through the battery.

I think to sum it up is that the way people used to own cars has changed from the way I remember it, and is further exacerbated by used car prices. My parents never owned a car that was less than 10 years old, at most. One was a 1951 Plymouth (I learned to drive in), a 1973 Impala and a 1957 Chevy pickup. This was in the late 80's through early 2000's. My dad would just rebuild the engine or transmission whenever one died. Today he drives a 1984 Toyota Pickup he rebuilt the engine in.

So if the Avalon were totaled tomorrow it seems my option would be: use the insurance money to put a down payment on a new Corolla and call it a day. If not: keep driving the Avalon saving up what are my payments are now, and then when it get's too expensive to maintain, sell it and put a down payment on a Corolla. Or if used car prices come back down, maybe instead put a down payment a 3 to 5 year-old Camry or even an Avalon again with either money. The question would be if the hybrid would be worth it?

Yes, I'm selling the Prius.

[Ecky]

I think a hybrid is worth it, especially if it's a new car. Since they're all basically disposable anyway, better to get one with lower operating and total cost of ownership.