Modern Vespa

That all depends on how the electricity is generated. If you're mostly hydro, geo-thermal, wind, wave or tide then it's about 30,000 miles. If it's all coal, it's more like 300,000 miles.

This is worth watching and may change your view on EV's.

I was thinking the same - that's hardly an expensive car in 2008. It's not one of the cheapest options, sure, but C'mon

Sigh…how I wish. Not the thing for folks in these parts.

That's a nice video. I've posted that elsewhere.

The thing that he doesn't take into account is this. He makes the statement that you "Need to generate the electricity to charge the EV and that creates CO2, and petrol creates CO2 every time you start the thing up."

He's comparing the output of the ICE to the input of the EV. There's a lot of talk about "energy supply" for the EV, but very little, if anything about the "energy supply" for the ICE, just emissions during driving.

Here's a comparison.

I have to admit, he raises some very good points.

It's the voice of Kryton from Red Dwarf.

In the video, the point was made that an EV car needs to travel 90,000 miles before it "breaks" even with the comparable IC car's emissions. Any car should be in service for at least 90k miles, right? Unless a car is rendered undrivable due to accident, it should easily "last" beyond 90k? What company's cars die before 90k?? Let me know and I'll make sure I avoid that make…

Plus, at least for a certain segment in the U.S, the environmental benefits of EVs are secondary or entirely unimportant. IMO, there are lots of reasons EVs are more desirable than IC vehicles, but I'd say economics is the driver of their future adoption here in the States. With gasoline at $5 per gallon, more and more people who actually USE trucks are starting to see the benefits of the new EV Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado vs. their IC versions. When your career involves towing lawn mowers from site-to-site, and now you are feeding your giant truck (and mowers) $5 per gallon fuel that used to cost half of that, suddenly solar panels and an EV truck seem like a really good idea.

A good observation, a point which many miss. Exploring for oil, getting it out of the ground and refining it produces a hell of lot of noxious stuff, but that's rarely referred to when EVs and ICE vehicles are compared.

The ICE world called the end-to-end environmental impact "Well-to-wheel". Lot of materials on it too.

Miguel

The mobile mechanics ran late on Friday so coming on Monday to replace the batteries on my bro's Prius. Miguel

The mobile mechanics ran late on Friday so coming on Monday to replace the batteries on my bro's Prius. I asked him to take some pics for me. More on Monday. Miguel

The mobile mechanic replaced my bro Stephen's Prius' battery. It took all of 20 minutes. The battery itself was about 6" x 9" x 30" (150mm x 225mm x 750mm if I did the math right) - not very big, nor heavy. The new battery was fully charged.

Before the installation, the tech connected on a OBD tool and scanned for codes. He saw the code for the exhausted battery and cleared it. He also found a few other unrelated codes.

After fully installing, he scanned for codes again and didn't find any. All the dashboard lights worked normal. The tech then took it for a drive and told my bro it's working normally.

The company guaranteed the battery for the life of the car for an additional $25. Stephen told me the company had great online reviews. His experience was fantastic. Nice people, friendly, helpful, walked him thru everything. They emailed him an invoice, he paid it via his phone while the tech waited. My brother is quite happy with the service.

The tech drives a 2012 Prius for servicing. He basically covers all of New England, NY, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland and maybe the Carolinas. He is one of ten techs that cover the entire US. The tech packs his car with a bunch of batteries and makes service calls all day. The tech showed my bro his odometer, 625,000 miles and still on the original battery pack!!

The company name if anyone needs it is Greenbean Batteries. Looks like they will replace the batteries in a wide variety of car makes and models. Note that they use reconditioned batteries which I presume means they've rebuilt old battery packs with new cells. The tech said that replacing the batteries and clearing the codes is simple and an easy DIY. But Stephen only has this one car and couldn't afford the down time waiting for batteries.

As I mentioned in the opening post, My brother works for American Airlines and is an aircraft ground controller. He controls the aircraft movement while in the terminal area and passes them off to airport ground control at a designated point. With storms and massive travel these days, aircraft are always late and he often leaves work quite late. A couple nights ago, he got off at 430AM (he's usually off at 11PM), before public transportation started running. He decided to walk the two hour home. He says he's done it in the past and always find interesting neighborhoods to walk thru.

I hope this thread was instructive and interesting. I learned a lot. And all's well that ends well.
Miguel

Great thread. Thanks.

I had almost the same experience as you, Miguel. My Prius is still going strong four years later. Do you mind me asking what the final bill was?

As a Prius owner of a 2016 I was interested in your topic.
After driving my 2007 175,000 miles, I gave it to my Cousin who's is still driving it. At 135,000 Toyota put a new battery in that 2007 under warranty. So she only had 40,000 on the battery when she received it.
Only thing that happened was someone stole the catalytic converter off it in her apartment complex. She's since moved and had the cat replaced with an aftermarket unit, something you can apparently do in AZ and not CA. (unsure on this)
Glad your brother had a good experience with that company.
Thank you for posting about it.

Tierney, it wasn't me, it was my bro Stephen. as described in the opening post, he had 213K miles on his 2008 Prius. He paid them $1525 which includes a lifetime battery warranty.

Miguel

That depends on how power is generated in whatever particular state he was plugging in... A new phone being launched will tax the planet far more than me and all of my descendants combined will... It's a nice notion, but our vehicle sizes are just a drop in the ocean of what comes out of China...




I missed the post but I saw someone say they were surprised about the brake pads and rotors. Welcome to regenerative braking. My Toyota Highlander Hybrid (v6) was the same thing.

Interesting information, thanks for the thread.

Always great to read about experience and knowledge rather than the habit of posting links to videos as evidence of opinion confirmation.

One final follow up... My brother has been driving the car for a week since getting the batteries replaced. He's not had any issues or problems. He's getting the same mileage he was before the battery replacement: 48 mpg. Not bad for a 14 yo car with 213k miles.

Out of curiosity, I looked up what it would cost to replace the batteries in our full-sized hybrid SUV since its 9 years old and Toyota says the batteries should last 10 years. It is $2995 to have Greenbeanbattery.com replace it for us. BTW, we get about 26/27 mpg.

Miguel

The cool thing about all of this is the used battery pack is taken back to the shop, checked, run thru a recycling charge several times, checked again and then readied to be put back into service. Any lousy connections or upgrades are done and checked one more time. Of course this takes time, knowledge, and a few expensive machines. Upside is you get a reliable running car again and the battery (and car) stays out of the landfill.