Latest on battery news

I personally would search for a junkyard deal. One good option would be something like my scrapped 2017 Prius Two that had the NiMH battery but was scrapped at 50K miles. The Prius One and Two (not Two Eco) had NiMH batteries. I do not know how that translated to the later Gen 4 Trim names.

 

Oem is still the best.
After that, reliability suffers, to one extent or another

 

I wouldn't go refurbished personally. For new, be it OEM or otherwise, make sure you get at least a 3yr warranty with it.

 

greenbean was horrible! They were selling "used" batteries.

But they finally got wise and went with Sodium Ion. Which is the way to go.
No issues with the heat or cold. Mine was same as a normal day when it was in the upper 20's
for a few days. The charge/discharge didn't change and it held the charge during the cold weather.

It is something you can do yourself.
Lithium batteries are good, unless it gets very cold out. Or they get wet...
The sodium ion is a much lighter, stronger, and safer battery.

 

This is what I do. I have almost exactly the same thing you do - a 2017 Prius battery from a front-end collision with 44k miles. I paid $720.

 

> When did you buy your battery? What was after tax cost?. I'm assuming you installed yourself. How was the core handled and did it actually improve your mileage? And finally, what year Prius and how many miles before your original battery went bad?

Brown's Auto Salvage in VT.

$720 was after tax, might have been a little lower - I think it was $660 before tax? I can go find the receipt if you care about that kind of difference. VT state.

I haven't installed this one yet; it's a spare. I work on Gen2 Prii often for my makerspace friends. In theory, I bought it in advance for a 2008 Prius with 216K and its original battery. It's doing fine, I just like to be prepared because the unexpected is not free to navigate around, and I have enough of these cars in my orbit.

The salvage yard did not want a core. I've bought three batteries this way. In the past, businesses haven't asked for a core, though I'm guessing that in this tariff environment, the demand for the core will increase as availability dries up. In one of those cases the core was reused elsewhere (repacked into the battery case of a different friend who had not started his car since 2019 after receiving P08A0).

Disposal of the second core, which replaced a shadetree reman, has become a problem, since I needed the case, and my local Toyota dealership refused to even see it; besides that, I've heard tell that, even when packed into cases, Toyota doesn't want hybrid batteries that have non-sequential-serial cells.

Improve mileage? I haven't checked or cared. My goal has been minimal TCO at maximum convenience and reasonable safety. I've only replaced batteries that throw codes; I don't care about the difference between 37 mpg and 50 mpg.

As an an anecdote, the first broken Prius I'd bought made 48mpg doing 75 from Burlington to EWR on a 2023 reman Green Bean battery bought from a junkyard for $450+tax. 2007 Prius, https://downloads.laboratoryb.org/reports/CARFAX_2007_PRIUS_JTDKB20U673205431.pdf, around 170K. This had its original battery.

 

Mine was t-boned in the passenger door by a 4Runner.

 

I've heard many things on PriusChat, and (outside of evidence- or citation-backed claims) never found them true. The premise of using junkyard OEM packs supports this; the lack of commentary from Toyota about degradation of their NiMH packs after long periods of sitting also supports this. Even if the packs *did* degrade, so long as they degrade evenly across all cells -- a feature of using non-reman OEM packs -- the result remains a totally functional pack which does not throw codes nor encourage poor power management behavior from the car.

NiMH has high self-discharge rates (see citations to #Self-discharge-rates), and self-discharge rates that vary cell-to-cell as SoH changes, so it's possible that PriusChat-cited anecdotes are emphasizing the lack of capacity of the battery on first start after storage. I don't know the logic in the HV ECU, but it's possible that'd suffice to trigger "channel goes low" codes.

 

I'd probably phone dealership for starters. Is that not on the table?

Hmm: Amayama says they can have a G9510-47060 battery (the primary, OEM part no according to Google AI) on my doorstep by March fourth, for ~$1820 USD:



Buy Genuine Toyota G951047060 (G9510-47060) Battery Assy, Hv Supply for Toyota Prius. Prices, fast shipping, photos, weight - Amayama

Would current economic situation in the States add import duty??

 

I can't find a confirmation on the HS code for the G9510-47060; I have one record found where a G9510-47060 was accepted to an Indian port as 8507.5000. Harmonized Tariff Schedule does not have JP in the "special rates" list, so it should be a 3.4% tariff. (To get the details on the column meanings, roll over the (i) button near the "RATES OF DUTY" header.)

Just because Amayama offers a price, doesn't mean they have the stock, and doesn't mean it's available ... but we are talking a Prius battery here, not Honda Insight parts.

 

That's never been my experience, albeit with smaller purchases. And if they don't have something, they've always said as much.