How long do hybrid batteries in hybrid cars last?

Question

I am thinking about getting a hyvrid car, but I heard that the bartteries in them that they run off of when they don't use gas die fast, and they are really expensive to replace. I am wondering how long they do in fact last, years or miles, it's all good. Thanks!

Answer 1

All of the new-from-the-factory hybrid cars sold in the U.S. typically carry an 8-year  / 100,000 mile warranty on the battery.  In states with California-standard emissions regulations, the hybrid battery warranty is 10-years / 150,000 miles.

If the battery fails during the warranty period (which is extremely rare), the carmaker has to replace it for you FREE.

That's as long as you don't void the warranty by doing things like crash the car or tamper with the battery or damage it by improperly modifying the car (such as punching through the battery casing with screws when installing things like 1000-watt speakers).

I own a Prius, and with a warranty like that on my car, I'm not worried.  I bought mine in New Jersey, which has California-standard emissions regs, so I'm covered for 10 years / 150,000 miles.

Answer 2

Ok, to start with the other answer has already addressed the warranty issues, so I'm not going to go there other than to say that the person who gave that information nailed it.

What I would say to you is to relax, if you want a hybrid, go for it.  The people who are telling you that the batteries:  "die quickly", "are expensive", "are dangerous", "are prone to exploding", etc, really don't have a clue about what they're talking about.  I'm being really kind about that, what I'm thinking about these folks would have to be censored.

Try and think of the traction battery in a hybrid as being roughly the equivelent of the transmission on a conventional car.  They cost about the same to replace is something goes wrong with them.  The difference is that traction batteries fail a whole lot less frequently than transmissions do.

You don't say what kind of hybrid you're thinking about, so I'm going to address the oldest and the most established:  Toyota's.  They've been selling hybrids now for 10 years.  Since day one, they've been saying that they expect that the traction battery will last the life of the car.  So far they've been proven largely right.  There have been some that haven't lasted the life of the car, but those have generally been damaged in accidents or by people doing really stupid things with them.

The highest milage hybrid that I'm aware of is was  250K mile Prius taxi from Vancouver.  I says "was" because it was totaled in an accident.  As I understand it, before that the only thing done to the car was standard maintenance.  If you want more back-up, see some of the hybrid specific chat groups like priuschat.com or greenhybrid.com.

Having said that, there are less stellar stories.  For example, the first 9,000 batteries that Ford put in the Escape had to be recalled because they were defective.  I have heard that the American versions of these batteries suffer from many problems that the Japanese versions don't have.