For the battery experts out there... When the battery of a Regular Prius gets old, car performance rapidly deteriorates, then the car becomes unusable. For the Prius Prime, is the end of life phase the same, or is it different since the battery is 10x larger? For example, at year 12, a Regular Prius battery may completely die. In a Prius Prime, the EV-only range may steadily deteriorate over time and may only get 8 miles/charge at year 12. However, if one use HYBRID ONLY mode at year 12, will the car battery still run several more years since there is a significant battery life left (say 33% of original)?
it is the same as a regular hybrid. while ev miles will slowly decrease, there will come a point when a cell will go out of parameters and it will not start the engine, never mind drive. what we don't have as much history on is lithium vs nimh. only time will tell what characteristics are different, if any. toyota's usb lithium use started in 2012, so, we're probably a few more years away from any decent data. we have had a couple of plug in batteries go bad under warranty though.
