Battery range is 15 miles max. The cycle life is 800. 800 x 15 equals 12,000 miles. The cost is $5,000. $5,000/12,000 miles is 41.6 cents per mile just for the battery depreciation.

The batteries weigh 360 pounds. 360 pounds of lead acid batteries at costco costs $450. They may not have a cycle life of 800, but you could sure replace them several times for $5,000.

The article states the expected battery life is 2 years. Am I supposed to get 800 cycles in two years?

These are the reasons why GM killed the electric car.

Battery technology is not there yet. The hybrid is over-rated. Even at today's elevated prices it is more economical to get a corolla and buy fuel with the savings. This could change in the future, because of more expensive gasoline or cheaper more durable batteries, but I think it is just as likely we could come up with a nice source of liquid fuels from biomass. Liquid fuels are great!

JRod.

JRod,
Hybrids are not overrated. Take Honda's new insight, coming out next year. $1500 cost for the hybrid system. That will take only 40k miles to make up, plus the car would be worth more at that point.

Heck, I am easily getting an average of 65mpg in my civic hybrid, show me a gasoline car that is cheaper to own even after the cost differential. You won't find one for the amount of miles that I drive.

Is there any talk of building plug-in systems for Honda's hybrids? I drive a Honda Accord Hybrid and wouldn't mind a powerful battery. I get about 35 mpg on the highway, and wouldn't mind bumping up my mpg...

The drug corporations and the car companies just want to take your money and keep you hooked on their products. I on the other hand, only want to help you.

I'm with JRod. This thing doesn't currently make economic sense at all. But it's a start. It'll be interesting to see what they're doing in five years. Until then, I'll stick with gasoline.

Battery range is 15 miles max. The cycle life is 800. 800 x 15 equals 12,000 miles. The cost is $5,000. $5,000/12,000 miles is 41.6 cents per mile just for the battery depreciation.

You don't replace the entire $5000 system in two years, just the batteries. Battery cost for the open-source project was only $800 but lifetime cost was 20 cents/mile because the batteries only lasted 400 cycles. These 800 cycle batteries cost more upfront but probably come in around 15 cents/mile. Of course gas cost for a Prius is only 10 cents/mile. This conversion is about getting off oil, not saving money.

Advanced lithium battery vendors claim thousands of cycles and high volume prices below $500/kWh. This gets battery depreciation cost down to 2-4 cents/mile. Gasoline and liquid biofuels can't compete with that, though they'll still be useful for long distance travel.

@Dan

I like the comparison of car maintenance to being on maintenance drugs. That was funny!

I guess I have to wonder how much maintenance we all do to our cars. Sure there are fluid changes and rare mechanical failures, but I do not think I spend thousands and thousands on maintenance. I think my biggest expense are tires, along with alignments and balancing, and that will occur whether it's an ICE or an electric vehicle.

Is there data out there on the projected maintenace costs of a vehicle?

doggydogworld has it right:
"This conversion is about getting off oil, not saving money." The Prius HEV was not cost effective for many years. This will change even more that it has already when the generation 3 Prius is released next year. You'll see the same evolution for PHEV technology but it will happen faster. The battery technology is here and the cost is already starting to come down. Lots of Lithium out there so the cost will be able to drop significantly.

@David Cabral,
I haven't kept up with Honda's newer hybrid efforts, but they're earlier hybrids were (are?) all electric assisted ICE designs. You need to have this the other way around to convert it to a PHEV. The Prius for example is an ICE assisted electric drive. This has been a mistake for Honda in my opinion. I won't consider purchasing a Honda hybrid until they fix this. Of course my next car purchase will be a Series-PHEV like the Volt, also called an Extended-Range Elextric Vehicle (E-REV). Way, way better less fuel use than a parrallel/series HEV or PHEV llike the Prius.

@dan,
Nope, EV1, RAV4 EV, and at least one other failed to catch on because battery tech was not up to the task at the time. Do you have a $500 deposit on an Aptera or are you just another whiner who won't put his money where his mouth is? Aptera EV is faster, more aerodynamic, lighter, and cheaper than EV1. There's an E-REV version if you don't want to be restricted to 120 mile range. GM said over and over that customers were not purchasing high mpg vehicles. It was true. What are YOU doing about this?

$4995 buys, relatively, alot of $4.00 a gallon gas, considering the Prius's high mpg numbers. That could equate to over 50K miles. The improvements over stock do not appear to be attrractive enough to the majority of us. Especially with the added burden of carrying around these the weight of these extra lead batteries, in places the car wasnt designed to be carrying them. Perhaps thats why the Toyota engineers didnt design them in, in the first place.

But this is progress, and progress is what we need. Whats the latest on the Toyota A-Bat???

$5000 is the cost of the entire system and the profit they have to make from manufacturing it - not the cost of the PbA batteries alone. You are buying a ready to install kit for $5000, not 5kWh of PbA batteries.

Bob Bastard, Yes, absolutely, but I think E-REVs and BEVs would have sold to nuts like me if todays battery tech had been available then. I doubt oil will go back down to $20 a barrel in the future. $40 to $60 sure, but not any time soon on that one, if ever. By then cost advantage of E-REVs and BEVs will be well established, with even better models in the pipeline. Pure ICEs will no longer be able to compete. Think we're seeing a permanent shift to electric ground transportation starting.