Interesting article on hybrid mods:
Experimental hybrid cars get up to 250 mpg
4 hours ago
Sunday, August 14, 2005
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5 comments:
Yep, my friend Cillic has a Prius and he's looking into some of these mods. It sucks that in EU and Japan, you can purchase the cars with these mods already, but in the US you have to go out of your way to order stuff from Japan and do it yourself. The oil/auto industries just won't let go.
Great idea. With some more work it might actually be viable. However it poses a couple of questions. What happens to the batteries as they are used and can't hold their charges? That's quite a large number of batteries that need to be replaced every couple of years and whose chemicals are dumped back into the environment. It would have to be an amazingly great recycling program for them to work well without hurting the environment. But if it's doable than i'm in. Unfortunately the really hilly, 30 minute one way, drive to work each day wouldn't make it feasible.
In answer to your question, normal hybrid car batteries are fully recycled and they are designed to last 150,000 to 200,000 miles ... the life of the car. There wasn't enough detail in the article for me to determine what comprises the extra batteries that they add but I believe the battery life is longer than you think. Traditional car batteries last only a couple of years (or a year in climates like Arizona) but people don't seem concerned with that. That is because there is a system in place for recycling them (over 90% are recycled). Considering the organizations that are pushing hybrid technology, one would assume that any effect on the environment would have been considered and there would be similar programs in place. This is a decent site for general questions about hybrid cars: hybridcars.com
Makes sense and sounds good to me
There battery issue is obviously a valid concern. And I guess the replacment cost is so prohibitive (about $6000) that the battery life pretty much defines the car's lifetime. But I've also read, that no existing hybrid car has ever had to have it's battery replaced. The batteries are intended to last about 10 years. I would assume that as the technology is refined, the replacement cost would decrease.
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