Toyota designed the control system to maximize battery life. That's all you need to know. The energy display is entertaining and distracting, but fun to look at occasionally when the traffic is light and you're bored. Crossing the US on the interstates is a driving situation when turning it on to glance at the battery state once in a while is utterly innocuous and poses no risk.
My curiosity about it was noting when (at what loads and speeds) the control system held the battery in about the half charge state vs the higher charge states on the display, and how quickly it transitioned in different driving situations. I'm technically curious about the car, unlike the average driver... I found it curious for a while and came to what I thought was a reasonable conjecture about the workings of the control system vis-a-vis energy flow. Passengers I've had in the car seem to enjoy the display for about ten minutes and then totally ignore it. Most of the time, most people I know with a Prius turn on the fuel economy display for daily driving, which is a sticky setting ... the car wakes up with it. This provides more useful information and is easy to understand without distraction. It's what I normally leave on the display (MFD) when I'm driving and have it turned on at all. The batteries are easily recyclable, and desirable to do so as they are expensive. There will be partial cost recovery for owners of high mileage cars as they have salvage value. At the moment, the volumes of hybrid electric cars on the market make buying a 7 year old example with 100,000 miles a theoretically risky proposition but since there aren't any it's a moot point. On the other hand, by the time there *are* 7 to 10 year old examples with 100,000 miles or more available, I predict the aftermarket and information ecology of the marketplace will have changed significantly. How the battery warranty might transfer I'm not concerned with. However in the US warranties on emissions/environmental control system durability and performance are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, not linked to any specific ownership of the vehicle, and the batteries are likely considered as part of the emissions/environmental control package. This is a new technology vehicle. The technology is not yet well understood by the service industry and the people conjecturing about it on web pages and in the industry press. I expect that understanding to change as the benefits *and* fallabilities of the drive system become better known, the problems it might have advance from myth to commonsense, and as the volume of vehicles in use built around it increases. I do expect that we'll see a lot more of it as time goes on as I feel the benefits are substantial. Godfrey On Nov 24, 2006, at 2:58 AM, mike wilson wrote: > I read it yesterday and quoted from memory, which was, of course, > wrong. It's between 45 and 75%, 60% being the optimum state of > charge. If you google (advanced) with "prius" as "exact phrase" > and "battery replacement" as "all these words" you will get the > list I got. Can't imagine the battery state will have any user > input. That would be like going back to "mixture" and "advance and > retard" levers on infernal combustion engines. Too much > distraction. I get worried enough when Godfrey talks about > watching the display to see what's going on. 8-) -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
