Toyota: Reconditioning Can Extend Hybrid Battery Life

[Chuck]

Spinella - did you account for this in your Dust to Dust work?

Autochannel – Sept. 23, 2007

Long before the first Prius left the showroom more than a decade ago, Toyota developed a detailed procedure for recycling hybrid vehicles' nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) batteries. In the years since, Toyota also has developed a way to postpone recycling by keeping hybrid batteries in service longer.

To the consumer, recycling the battery from a Toyota hybrid is totally invisible: Owners don't have to take any action or pay anything. For hybrids that wind up in a scrap yard, there's a toll-free number on the battery pack: Callers learn they'll get a $150 reward for bringing the unit to a Toyota or Lexus dealer. Toyota then ships the battery pack to a single recycling center. Every component-from plastic to precious metal-is recyclable. With nickel prices near all-time highs, it's likely a large portion of recycled batteries will quickly become part of other products.

Toyota batteries are designed to last a long time. It appears this goal is being achieved: www.hybridexperience.ca reports that two '01 Prius taxis Human each accumulated more than 200,000 miles. That's more than double the warranty, which is eight years or 100,000 miles (or 10 years or 150,000 miles for states that follow California regulations).
… [Read More]

[brick]

This is interesting because this is the first time I've heard of Toyota being interested in doing what we all knew **should** be possible: replaceing the bad cell rather than the entire pack. It sounds like we'll be able to order a reconditioned pack just like a new one, and ~$750 covers the cost of having a trained technician do the work at a central Toyota facility. This is very confidence-inspiring for those of us who want to run these cars into the ground.

[FireEngineer]

Toyota actually pays $200 not $150. And with nickel prices right now the battery is worth more than $400.

Wayne

[owlmaster08]

And we can have a similar response from Honda, I would hope?

[msantos]

Originally Posted by owlmaster08

And we can have a similar response from Honda, I would hope?

Sadly, not for the immediate future. It all has to do with volumes and for the time being Honda will require the entire pack to be shipped back to them for reconditioning. They cite several reasons for this including cell matching and packaging/safety assembly considerations.

Perhaps a year of two after the 2009 small platform hybrid comes out they'll institute a training program and process for cell replacement that can be carried out by qualified dealers or regional Honda engineering services.
The planned manufacturing capacity for the new 2009 model currently being put in place may be an encouraging indicator that a similar process may be put in place.
Unlike Toyota, Honda does not command most of the NiMH production from Panasonic and as such, their need to recondition the packs will definitely more acute. Sanyo is the other battery supplier for Honda which has to share the cherry picked yield with Ford and other vendors.

Cheers;

MSantos