hybrid car kept outdoors - will battery need replacement sooner?
May 26, 2024 9:20 AM Subscribe
This is a question that seems like it should be simple, but Google is giving me absolute rubbish. We're thinking about buying a used gasoline hybrid, but we only have access to outdoor parking. Winter lows are rarely below freezing here, but we have three months a year where highs of 38 C/100 F are frequent. Should we factor an earlier than usual battery replacement into the running costs? Relatedly, is garage vs. street storage by previous owner an important factor to consider when choosing a used gasoline hybrid?
We had our Prius gen 2 for 13 years of outdoor storage and when we sold it it was still on its first battery.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 9:45 AM on May 26 [2 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 9:45 AM on May 26 [2 favorites]
I can only offer anecdata, but we had 2 2006 Priuses that were never garaged, spent most of their lives in Southern California, and the battery arrays failed in the same year (wanna say 2018ish) in the 120K mile range. This was right on the dot of what we were expecting based on years of PriusChat posts.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:46 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
posted by Lyn Never at 9:46 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
No issue at all. Ours is outdoors all winter in Buffalo...-15 F. is not uncommon.
posted by Czjewel at 9:48 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 9:48 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
I own a 2012 EV and a 2014 PHEV that are stored outside year-round, often in the Texas heat. The EV has only lost around 10% of its range, the PHEV around 20%. In the EV community, battery swaps really seem to only happen when there is a defect or recall, when the car has atypically high mileage, or sometimes with very old hybrids well beyond the age of the average car on the road.
posted by eschatfische at 10:21 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
posted by eschatfische at 10:21 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
While 38C is a little above the ideal storage range for batteries, the difference it could potentially make is very small. The actual use of the batteries (charging and discharging) will cause far more wear on the battery than transient storage temperatures up to 38C. This is not something you need to factor in or worry about at all. Many hybrids and EVs see much worse on the cold end (far below ideal temperatures in colder climates) and their batteries last just fine.
posted by ssg at 10:51 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
posted by ssg at 10:51 AM on May 26 [1 favorite]
I think it's likely the life of the battery will be reduced by temperature extremes, both hot and cold. But it doesn't matter, it's still the winning technology for many situations and hybrid cars are proven tech.
Our Gen 2 prius (2005) just recently had its first battery problem on year 19 around 350,000 miles. It was worth fixing, we're still driving it. It is utterly worn out and still gets MPGs in the mid 40s no matter whether city or highway. Our weather is more extreme than yours and it's never seen the inside of a garage.
posted by fritley at 12:03 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
Our Gen 2 prius (2005) just recently had its first battery problem on year 19 around 350,000 miles. It was worth fixing, we're still driving it. It is utterly worn out and still gets MPGs in the mid 40s no matter whether city or highway. Our weather is more extreme than yours and it's never seen the inside of a garage.
posted by fritley at 12:03 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
Ours has been under a carport for 15 years. Original battery still going strong (under 100,000 miles, because we don't commute with it). I've never heard anyone say anything about outdoors storage being a detriment to the hybrid battery.
posted by lhauser at 12:31 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
posted by lhauser at 12:31 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
LiFePo4 batteries are happiest between about 0°C and 45°C.
38°C isn't going to bother them at all. Your outdoor conditions are basically ideal for them.
posted by automatronic at 12:48 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
38°C isn't going to bother them at all. Your outdoor conditions are basically ideal for them.
posted by automatronic at 12:48 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
Kia Niro Hybrid (not PHEV) parked outside in NYC for 4 years, -5C to + 38C. Battery performance unaffected in my experience.
posted by lalochezia at 5:01 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
posted by lalochezia at 5:01 PM on May 26 [1 favorite]
My take on this is that automotive engineers know that cars will be stored and used under a broad range of conditions and have done a fairly good job of designing systems that won't meaningfully degrade if they aren't used perfectly (if you can even consider "not garaged" to be an imperfect way to use a car). Is it possible the battery will fail and need to be replaced eventually? Sure, and if you plan to drive the car into the ground it's maybe even likely. But parking outside doesn't mean you'll need to budget for it any more than you'd budget for a transmission swap or blown head gasket or something.
Also, keep in mind that hybrids are already the less-demanding use case for a vehicle battery: they have an ICE there to do the heavy lifting, which is to say, most of the things which have a potential to degrade the battery. Things like "go from 0-80% charge in 40 minutes" or "accelerate the car to 80 MPH repeatedly" are this kind of thing, and EV batteries are designed to do them without failing prematurely. (And, ultimately, the most common failure mode is "incremental loss of capacity," not "the car suddenly stops working and needs an expensive repair".)
Heat and cold are a factor, certainly, but what really matters is e.g. heat generated by pushing charge into or pulling charge out of the battery fast, much like you can feel your laptop battery get warm after you plug it in. And, where necessary, cars with batteries use active battery heating and cooling using coolant circuits and radiators, technologies that have been refined through decades of use in internal combustion engines. Your hybrid's battery is there to absorb and release relatively small amounts of energy to supplement the ICE, and will have it relatively easy by comparison.
Finally, I suspect a lot of the "EV/hybrid batteries are extremely fragile and ruinously expensive to replace" messaging is politically motivated, or, more charitably, outdated canards repeated by people who don't have an EV and aren't interested in learning anything about them. There are a lot of people in the US who are weirdly opposed to the idea of non-fossil fuel vehicles, possibly becasue they feel like they're some sort of scam related to climate change, which they also think is a scam.
posted by pullayup at 7:41 PM on May 26 [2 favorites]
Also, keep in mind that hybrids are already the less-demanding use case for a vehicle battery: they have an ICE there to do the heavy lifting, which is to say, most of the things which have a potential to degrade the battery. Things like "go from 0-80% charge in 40 minutes" or "accelerate the car to 80 MPH repeatedly" are this kind of thing, and EV batteries are designed to do them without failing prematurely. (And, ultimately, the most common failure mode is "incremental loss of capacity," not "the car suddenly stops working and needs an expensive repair".)
Heat and cold are a factor, certainly, but what really matters is e.g. heat generated by pushing charge into or pulling charge out of the battery fast, much like you can feel your laptop battery get warm after you plug it in. And, where necessary, cars with batteries use active battery heating and cooling using coolant circuits and radiators, technologies that have been refined through decades of use in internal combustion engines. Your hybrid's battery is there to absorb and release relatively small amounts of energy to supplement the ICE, and will have it relatively easy by comparison.
Finally, I suspect a lot of the "EV/hybrid batteries are extremely fragile and ruinously expensive to replace" messaging is politically motivated, or, more charitably, outdated canards repeated by people who don't have an EV and aren't interested in learning anything about them. There are a lot of people in the US who are weirdly opposed to the idea of non-fossil fuel vehicles, possibly becasue they feel like they're some sort of scam related to climate change, which they also think is a scam.
posted by pullayup at 7:41 PM on May 26 [2 favorites]
I drive a 2010 Honda Insight with 220,000 miles on it. It has always been stored outdoors year round in Georgia, USA where daily high temperatures are frequently greater than 35 C from May to September. It has had no battery problems.
(Honestly, it has had no real problems at all, and I'm really sad to think that it's going to finally die one day because Honda doesn't sell anything like it in the US anymore.)
posted by hydropsyche at 3:44 AM on May 27 [1 favorite]
(Honestly, it has had no real problems at all, and I'm really sad to think that it's going to finally die one day because Honda doesn't sell anything like it in the US anymore.)
posted by hydropsyche at 3:44 AM on May 27 [1 favorite]
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Honestly I think the problem is that the batteries... last a very long time. Much longer than originally thought when hybrids first started coming out. So there's just not a huge bank of data for failures that you can slice to get this info. (If I am wrong, I'd love to hear it!)
posted by restless_nomad at 9:31 AM on May 26 [3 favorites]