Tuesday, September 17, 2013

What are we going to do with all of the batteries generated from electric cars?

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Pied Husse


From the article:

"the industry has not figured out how to dispose of 500 plus pounds of the highly hazardous lithum batteries per car."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/09/electric-car-subsidies-transferring-wealth-from-poor-to-rich/



Answer
First of all, of course, any valuable elements of batteries will be recycled. Automotive batteries are currently the most consistently recycled product on earth.
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Secondly, lithium batteries simply do not contain anything very toxic. Below quote from http://www.myelectriccar.com.au/batteryeco.html
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QUOTE: "Lithium ion batteries are made from nontoxic lithium carbonate (often used in ovenware), nontoxic cobalt oxide (used as a pottery glaze), nontoxic graphite (used in pencils), and a polymer (plastic) membrane. The most toxic components in the final product are the electrolyte and lithium cobalt oxide, neither of which are persistant in the environment and both of which are increasingly being replaced by more benign compounds. "
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Unfortunately, the alternative - petroleum - is indeed quite toxic.

How Many Years Does the Battery in a Prius Last?




Dave


I'm really considering buying a Prius because me and my family have been scraping pennies to put gas in the tank these days. My moms Ford Taurus just ran out of gas the other day and that was the last straw for me. We are dumping around 30 bucks a week of our hard earned cash into that car, and enough is enough. I don't know much about hybrids or electric cars so I want to know how many years can I get out of the battery in the Prius before it needs to be replaced? Especially since i'm looking at a few used 2010 Prius' with around 37-47k miles on them. Are they low maintenance? What kind of gas savings can I expect to get? I just need reliable, low cost transportation back and forth to school.
And I know there is an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty but will the battery last longer than that? I don't want to be replacing a battery every 8 years.



Answer
The mean time between failures for the 2004+ Prius traction battery isn't really known because not enough Prius have reached 300,000 to 400,000 miles yet. There are Prius owners with over 400,000 miles on the original battery. For Prius owners, the traction battery is a non-issue, similar to how an automatic transmission is a non-issue to old fashioned car drivers. The replacement price isn't that high and has been going down every years. It's under $2000 plus $500 installation for a new battery.

http://www.trademotion.com/parts/2012/TOYOTA/PRIUS/?siteid=213747&vehicleid=1503615&section=HYBRID%20COMPONENTS

Or you can get rebuilt batteries from companies like http://www.re-involt.com/ (Though right now they really only do 2001-2003 Prius batteries because there haven't been enough 2004+ batteries fail. Note that the 2001-2003 use the older style batteries which don't dissipate heat as evenly). Over half the 2001-2003 Prius with the older style battery are still on the original battery, so I wouldn't put all that much faith in statements like "only lasts ten years". Also GM doesn't use the same chemistry as Toyota. GM uses LiOn while Toyota uses NiMH. (Toyota does use LiOn but only in the plug-in-prius).

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/hybrids-prove-very-reliable-1.599754

You can also obtain a battery from a newer wreck for about $500. So, just like an automatic transmission, there are many choices should it fail.

Battery life also depends on environmental conditions.

The Prius also has a small 12V auxiliary battery which lasts about five years.

2004 Prius MPG from the logbook. (Complete years only):
2003-2004 -- 50.8 mpg 17,628 miles
2005 -- 52.6 mpg 14,688 miles
2006 -- 56.3 mpg 16,174 miles
2007 -- 57.3 mpg 18,384 miles
2008 -- 59.9 mpg 21,755 miles
2009 -- 61.4 mpg 16,177 miles
2010 -- 65.2 mpg 12,134 miles
2011 -- 66.9 mpg 11,272 miles




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Title Post: What are we going to do with all of the batteries generated from electric cars?
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