Why has the public not heard about the cost of replacing batteries or the cost to recharge hybrid cars?
By Cars & Motorcycles on Oct 15, 2008 with Comments 6
Tommy Z asked: oh and when you have to plug your car into your homes power, where does that come from?
Filed Under: Hybrid Cars
About the Author:
Because it is costly and may turn off potential buyers.
well technically, you are a hypocrite for asking this question then, since you are MAKING us hear about the cost of replacing the battery now
by asking this question, you are doing what you are wondering
What about the fact that to produce 1 hybrid, It would have to be on the road for over 100 yrs. to compensate for the pollution produced to make it.
If you really want to save the environment, buy a used Toyota Corolla that gets 35 miles to the gallon. It has already been produced and it gets great gas mileage. Don’t buy a gimmick that causes even more pollution.
because then people star looking at what the batties do to the enviorment and will find out it is a gimic. like the electric car coming out where will most of the electricity come from. oh ya coal burning plants
Pure hybrid such as Prius have no recharge cost, regenerative braking energy puts a “free” charge on the battery whenever you stop.
Meanwhile I think it is moderately evident that the differentiating cost of the Hybrids is the expensive batteries. If a Prius is about twice the cost of an Echo with similar gas motor and size body, what is the big difference, the battery maybe?
What is important is to figure out a “payback period” for how many miles a month or year you drive, and then how long does it take for a 1 cent per mile savings to add up to real money. My bottom line says a hybrid won’t save me money in my house, largely because I don’t have far to go
There are no commercially-available plug-in hybrids on the market so far. (So you cannot plug a hybrid in, other than the same gas station pump that most other regular/conventional cars use.) The hybrid battery is recharged either through regenerative braking (kinetic energy from coasting/slowing down spins a generator to make potential energy in the battery) and/or by taking excess power from the gasoline engine (use the gasoline engine as a generator) to recharge the hybrid battery. There is no plug. No charging off the mains/local electric supply.
All hybrids on the market have at least an 8 year/80,000 mile warranty on the NiMH batteries, some out to 10 years/150,000 miles in CA emission states.
You can buy used hybrid battery packs for less than US$1000 on eBay. When out of the long warranty, why pay a dealer the approx. $3000 for a new pack for such an old car?