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A scary question no one is asking: What are we going to do with all the leftover hybrid batteries that are going to start appearing? Also, what sort of realistic grasp do we have on the natural resources necessary for making these batteries? How long before we really rape the earth for these materials (and the 3rd world countries where the materials are going to come from)? The following analogy is a bit of a stretch but... at one point nuclear power was hailed as the saviour - before we thought about the fact there was a lot of toxic waste when the process was done. Could this be a hybrids legacy too?

All food for thought and interesting discussion.

Shaggy, both Toyota and Honda have a well defined and comprehensive recycling procedure in place for "dead" batteries. I don't know what Ford and GM have for this purpose...

A scary question no one is asking: What are we going to do with all the leftover hybrid batteries that are going to start appearing? Also, what sort of realistic grasp do we have on the natural resources necessary for making these batteries? How long before we really rape the earth for these materials (and the 3rd world countries where the materials are going to come from)? The following analogy is a bit of a stretch but... at one point nuclear power was hailed as the saviour - before we thought about the fact there was a lot of toxic waste when the process was done. Could this be a hybrids legacy too?

All food for thought and interesting discussion.Have you searched here for Dust to Dust or Googled: "Prius Hummer myth?"

This has been discussed at length....detractors show 70's pictures of Sudbury, Ontario well before the cleanup of the area or before any hybrids were in production. They don't mention that Toyota buys a whopping 0.4% of all nickel mined there and most of that is for steel alloys....the average vehicle uses 50lbs of nickel vs 22lbs for a Prius traction battery. In other words, the majority of Toyota's nickel purchases are for conventional vehicles. Nickel is in such short supply for the foreseeable future, the batteries WILL be recycled - too valuable.


I have a few questions to The Guardian or whoever put that article a few years ago that attempted to equate Sudbury to Cherynobyl:


Why are they unconcerned about the fact that steel requires hundreds of times more nickel?
At this point, consumer electronics requires more NiMH batteries than hybrids - why no mention?
lead-acid batteries have been around a century and definitely more toxic - why no mention?Can you see the dishonesty of whoever attempted to make hybrid batteries seem like depleted uranium?

So everyone with a hybrid is going to take them to a dealer and properly recycle them? Actually kind of naive if you ask me. We are, I think, taking the easy out buying into their plan. The manufacturers number one goal is to get us to buy the vehicle. The plans for their vehicles demise is I think an after-thought at best. The big thing is to ease the conscience as you had them 25,000.

The reason to think about this is not to ignore hybrids or any other new form of transit, but to see what impact they will have down the road. Cars were at one point the answer to the unbelievable quantities of manure that once buried our cities from all the horse powered transportation. No one foresaw what the car would bring to the pollution table. It is as important to think about the ultimate legacy of the technology as it is to be wowed by the present gains.

I am a supporter of hybrids, diesels and EVs. Waiting for the price to be something I can manage and also waiting to understand all this stuff a little more. That is why hypermiling is so key. I can drive my 22 MPG car and with a modest effort and almost no investment (scangauge being it) turn it into a 32 MPG car. It all starts with the individual making a choice to conserve. If we all did that we could save more than everyone getting a new car of whatever technology that got 60 MPG (the thought here being no resources used on a car you already have).

If the driver won't recycle it, the scrapyard most certainly will. There is a financial incentive for them to, and it takes little effort to do so.

So everyone with a hybrid is going to take them to a dealer and properly recycle them? Actually kind of naive if you ask me. .

Shaggy,

Read Hummer Greener Than Prius Urban Myth Exploded (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4235&highlight=sudbury) - your responses suggest you have not. I was not directing it at you, but whoever started the toxic nickel concerns...why your concern if the nickel is in a hybrd while consumer electronics uses more? Why no mention that nickel in steel uses far more?

So are you suggesting to us that when a totalled Prius is taken to the scrap heap, the owner of the junk yard is going to pass on the value of the pack and also put himself at risk legally if the pack manages to jolt someone? (unlikely)

The discussion is not about steel using more nickel or electronics using more. The discussion is about a new stream of product coming online that is set to accelerate in growth and is only being thought about in a cursory manner. It is like thinking about the impact of cellphones 15 years ago. The waste was not identified until much later and now we have a glut of unwanted, surplus phones that despite the value of the commodities used to create them are still treated as disposable items (how many do we have sitting at home in a drawer?) I suppose part of all this is the fact our country is really so consumer driven. Discard the old buy the new. Is the old item finished or are we just finished with it? We tend not to worry about something until it is in the way.

I am aware of Sudbury, Hummers and all the rest. You can look at them however you want to spin the story.

We are all doing our best on sites like this and poking into topics like this keeps us sharp. It also ensures we are paying attention.

Is there something that leads you to suspect that the battery packs are not being recycled? Cars in general are one of the most highly recycled items we "junk" simply because of their high content of valuable material.

For one thing, hybrid battery packs are not a maintenance item like oil filters. Very few of them go bad, precisely because they are expensive (at this point) to replace. So car manufacturers limit the range of SOC so that the batteries do not need replacement often. There are reports of Prius batteries lasting >300,000 miles.

Part of the reason for this is that hybrid manufacturers do not want battery replacement to become a serious issue.

In any case, a "dead" hybrid battery is still valuable enough to make recycling of it worthwhile. Which is part of the reason why Honda and Toyota have set up exchange programs.

Let's worry about something else??

The discussion is not about steel using more nickel or electronics using more. The discussion is about a new stream of product coming online that is set to accelerate in growth and is only being thought about in a cursory manner.No, it's about why are you being a lot harder on hybrids than 97% of the other vehicles on the road? You dismissively say: I've read Dust to Dust and the Sudbury nickel mine articles, dodge larger environmental impacts than what hybrid battery packs allegedly do. In fact, you dub the rebuttal as spin when it really looks like it's the other way around.

Why is it so painful for you to acknowledge there is a strong profit motive to recover hybrid battery packs from scrapped hybrids? Whatever credibility you might have had sunk by these blind attacks without seriously responding to points like these.

Couple of years ago, at PriusChat, this was discussed numerous times - just like here. It's easy to find, you choose not to bother.

Again, I find it strange that the disposal of conventional vehicles of vastly larger numbers is being ignored and you ignore the fact lead acid is more toxic than NiMH batteries.

Also remember last week's report of the 15 San Francisco taxis - Ford Escape Hybrids. All 15 of them were retired due to the city's mileage limit of 300,000 miles. None had battery failures.

Well, with so much data and experience out there I guess I am having an "AHa moment" and seeing things different now. Everything should be fine. In hindsight reading these posts I see how silly I sounded.

I would submit that hybrid batteries will probably be recycled just like lead acid batteries are now.

Lead acid batteries are currently the most recycled item on earth, with 98% of them being recycled.

I remember that from a TV show. I think it was Modern Marvels.