It all depends on whether we are looking at the technology and what it is striving to achieve, or the cost of ownership. Might be worth noting they are about the same price in $ as they are in £, or so its seems.
But here's some +ve stuff from that thread...
The following Toyota warranty statements reflect how far they are going to go out on a limb.
Toyota's Prius warranty is 8 years / 100,000 miles on the hybrid system components e.g. inverter, electric motor, generator, and nickel metal hydride battery.
Their documentation states the expected life of the nickel metal hydride batteries is 150,000 miles "based on laboratory bench testing". The remainder of the vehicle is the typical 3 years/36,000 miles.
Anecdotal comments from my local Toyota service manager, (whom I've known for about 25 years and has shared freely what he knows on a number of technical questions) indicated they alway have some number of Prius that have crossed the 200,000 mile point on the original batteries.
Also, the service procedure does allow for replacing one or some of the (total 28 7.2v) batteries on their third generation design if there were to be an isolated early life failure. I believe the 2005 production was the first year of the third generation design.
Also I've read the batteries are typically only charged to about the 60% point as apparently this is the sweet spot for maximizing nickel metal hydride battery life at the expense of trading off additional battery reserve. This also leaves headroom for regenerative braking.
The other key difference in the nickel metal hydride batteries (developed by Panasonic for Toyota) are references in some of the literature to a "prismortal (sp?) design" that allow for very high inrush and outgo currents.. Haven't found any technical info on this..
That's all I've been able to find out so far..
Strictly anecdotal...As I've mentioned before, I'm not a great fan of these over priced hybrids, not cost effective in the overall picture, IMO. However, my tax accountant has had two of the Toyota Prius since they first came out. He is positively rabid about them. One car is his wife's and has considerably less than 100,000 miles and her only complaint was that the engine kept stalling every time she came to a stop (oh well)...the other (purchased used) is now something over 200,000 miles and he has only had it in for a fix of some sensor that made it hard to start when it was cold. Nothing more...pretty good quality as I see it but, they are still cheap, plastic, uncomfortable little POS (I would feel more comfortable in the new Lexus hybrid* if it cost less than 60g's). On that same note, as I see it, the Prius will amortize out at something like "junk yard" time if you can stand to live with it that long, I certainly could not...maybe at HALF that MSRP...Naaaaawwww---I'd still rather get standard car of equal cost should I ever entertain the idea.
From:
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm? ... 399&page=1
* The Lexus SUV is supposedly the next to have this form of power train installed.
Do we not give them even 5 out of 10 then for trying ?
Although Diesel seems the way in the short term, and answering my own question about thermodynamic efficiency, the normal Otto engine cycle or adaptions of it do in fact offer higher efficiency than the diesel Simply by unthrottling the petrol engine very good gains can be had, but it isn't that easy with a piston engine. And using photo-detonation with stratified charge engines, can it is said, double it - hence the billions being put into HCCI engine technology.
The problem seems to be, persevering with the reciprocating piston/crank engine.
The Wankel has a lot to answer for, being so disappointing it has biased the larger automotive mfrs against any form of rotary solution.
