Trouble with you theory is that these are not Nickel Cadmium Batteries.

The energy output will go down with colder temperature, and some charge will be lost also.

At higher temperatures it is difficult to get full charge into the batteries.

So Hybrids are less efficient in the cold and the extreme heat, sure.

Repeated cycling, which is normal operation for Hybrids, does not extend their life.

The batteries are rated in Cycles, why not find the actual battery specs for the actual batteries and find out?

Clues:

1. These are Nickel Metal Hydride batteries.
2. They are Panasonic batteries.

I can’t help you with part numbers – because I have not researched that.

Another intersting thing to research: who owns the patents on Nickel Metal hydride batteries for Electric Vehicles? And why did they buy the patents?

I am very tall, I notice legroom.

I only looked at a prius out of curiousity, as I had assumed it would be small inside, I was quite shocked.

We immediately switched our preferred choice of car to the Prius.

It is one of the few cars my Mother can get in and out of the back easily, due to the legroom and the clearance to the center door pillar.

For power – why do you need more power than the Prius???

Luggage space yes a wagon would be better, especially if it didn’t have a tank of highly flammable, highly compressed gas in the back.

But really, how often do yoiu use those things you are specifying?

And since you have no clue as to the space in a Prius, why are you spreading rubbish?

The fuel economy of the car engine has imrpoved out of sight, to compete with the Prius.

Charge cycles is the usual killer of batteries.

So this sorry, you are dead wrong!!!

BTW We are now looking at a Prius specifically for the room. The legroom in the back is amazing.

The Prius is available as a people mover in the US.

The Prius can probably be converted to LPG.

Mazda has been messing around with Tri-Fuel Hybrids for years now, they may happen soon. They have had test vehicles on the road in the US for years

I like how you invent imaginary limitations of the vehicle and hoops for it to jump though.

Do you want a cheap to run taxi with heaps of legroom? or just want to find reasons to influence others to avoid?

So, no – a NiMH battery is not better off being constantly cycled.

What does help with NiCd batteries is being deep-cycled rather than repeated shallow cycles. The reason for the deep cycling is to avoid the ‘memory’ effect which is actually crystalization of part of the cell that has not been cycled.

These are not NiCd though.

The NiMH battery has a life of 400-600 full charge cycles. A partial cycle is therefore less wear than a full cycle, but the total use still adds up.

The vehicle charge controller will prevent the discharge from being too deep as this would kill the battery, and also prevent over-charging as this will kill the battery also, and overheat as well.

So although this cannot be extrapolated to general use easily, combined with the lack of other battery fail data it indicates a long battery life, and certainly indicates that the 160,000km term of the warranty is conservative.

There have been other battery issues with Priuses, I found one just now, but it was in a 10 year old vehicle.

The question is how many, what percentage failure rate? Compare that then to the failure rate of other vehicles that are not Hybrid.

What is clear is that the myth of Hybrids being useless as their batteries would die is just spin put out by the petroleum industry, and the other car manufacturers.

You either bought the spin, or are a part of the spin machine.

We are 10 years into the Prius era – and there are next to no failures. Not zero, but next to none.

Would you like to tell us the cost of the battery replacement.

Thanks.