pnichols wrote:
J & A,
Thanks much for your answers above to the questions and issues that I brought up.
I hope the EV battery future goes that smooth. But I am skeptical at this point ... only time will tell what the real environmental cost is of EV batteries when EVs are used all over the world by the multi-tens of millions.
I had read once that it was a very "messy" issue manufacturing the batteries for the Prius - but I think that those batteries were of a different technology.
I hope it works out as well. Electric vehicles are such a superior drive I would hate to think they have come this far to fail. I doubt they will though as the demand is definitely there.
The original prius batteries were nickel metal hydride but I don't know much about them. They are all more than 12 years old now and many are starting to come due for change. I don't know how those are disposed of or recycled.
There is a lot of battery research going on right now. Just from what I read, I'm not sure that lithium batteries will be the norm in 10 years as there are other technologies being developed with higher energy density. Probably a ways away though and lithium has kind of proven itself. Like you say, we will have to wait and see. We are retiring in about 6 years and will no longer need two vehicles. We will replace them with whatever is current at the time but whatever it is I hope it has about 5000 pounds of tow capacity and 250 to 300 miles of range like the Tesla S today...just not 90,000 bucks.
We are super pleased with our existing electric vehicles and expect them to serve us well till then but they are medium range vehicles and once we are retired we will need something a little different. They were relatively inexpensive and are a pleasure to drive. Love our little cabrio though. Way fun.
