Prius battery life/cost?
November 9, 2009 in Toyota
Did you know that you can save fuel and run your car on water
Gracie asked:
I’ve had my Prius for 3 years and just last week I got in my car to go to work only to find the battery had died. So, then I had to get it towed to the Toyota place and get it replaced.
I found it odd that my battery would only last 3 years, but then again it’s my first hybrid car. The lady at the Toyota dealership said that that was about how long the batteries lasted- 3 years.
And then I had to pay $120 to replace it.
I was curious about this, so I googled Prius battery costs and battery life. Well, now what I thought seemed to be expensive for a battery didn’t seem so anymore. Most articles I found and statements from Toyota say the battery should last the life of the car, and the few batteries that are ever replaced usually cost around $2000.
But then I also saw a few articles about hybrid batteries not working well and a couple of people that have had to replace their batteries early too.
So I’m wondering- what is the average life of a Prius battery (personal experience??) and if my car was under waranty as it should have been, and if the battery costs $2000, then what was the $120 or???
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It was not a driving battery but a regular battery to start and other acc jobs in car. Prius batteries last or have 8 year/100,000 warranty. The only other thing is buying car used someone may have put regular battery in thinking he could sell other and replaced it as it would run on regular battery but not recomended. They cost about 300 each. You may have had the fake electric battery replaced by warranty as a battery is pro-rated so you paid 40% of new electric battery which could be 120.00 is about right .
First there are two batteries in your Prius: A small 12V battery and a large traction battery. If the car won’t start it’s the small 12V battery that’s the problem. This is the one your dealer replaced. There isn’t any difference in this battery and the battery found in other cars, except that it’s smaller because it doesn’t crank the engine (The Prius has no starter motor), it only turn on the computer and throws the relay for the main traction battery. It’s also a glass mat battery, which means that there isn’t any free liquid in it. This is so that you won’t get splattered with acid should someone rear-end you hard.
As a comparison, before I had the Prius I had a Newbeetle. The 12V battery in it died every year and cost $189 to replace.
However, you only have to jump the battery in the Prius if you’ve let it drain. There are jumper terminals under the hood for this. Some Prius owners purchase a jump kit–the cheapest one will do because almost no current is needed (typical cost is $30-$40). Because the Prius doesn’t have an alternator either, you have to drive it further after a draining event to get the 12V battery back to being fully charged.
One way that the 12V battery drains is from a light in the cargo area that gets left on if you don’t close the hatch properly. Turn this light off with the switch to avoid this problem. To avoid replacing the 12V battery in the future you can purchase a deep discharge battery from This battery will stand repeated drains without dying, while the OE battery will only take a couple of deep discharges before failing.
One consequence of the two battery system is that you can’t hot-wire a Prius, so theft is mostly a non-issue.
On my two Prius, I still have the original 12V battery on both the 2001 and the 2004. But then, neither one has been fully drained. Locking the car every time you leave it will cause it to beep if everything isn’t closed properly–another way to avoid problems.
The main traction battery is designed to last the life of the Prius. We don’t actually know the mean time between failures for this battery because there aren’t enough Prius out there with 300,000 to 400,000 miles. Both my Prius have the original traction battery. The traction battery is covered under warranty for 150K miles in CA emission states or 100K miles elsewhere. There have been very few failures. A Prius group member did a study of all the posts about traction battery failures and found that half the reported failures were for the 2001 model year and that the failure rate was something like 0.01% for all Prius. How accurate that actually is, I don’t know, but the failure rate is extremely low.
YOU ARE HARMING THE ENVIRONMENT WITH THAT BATTERY! they can not be disposed of efficiently, and it take so much shipping/mining/refinement to make those batteries. Its not worth what you saving in gas money. A hummer H2 is actually better for the environment, and will cost less to maintain then your prius. sell it and cut your losses. You should get a Volkswagen Jetta TDI. It costs less, its faster, it gets better gas miles, and it looks a lot nicer.