Sorry I left that out. There is no reason to believe that the main
(traction) battery will ever have to be replaced for the lifetime of the car
in 99.9% of the cases. In any case the battery is warranteed for 8 years
(10 years in CA emission states). Just remember that if you keep your car
forever, most likely you will have to replace your transmission (more
expensive than a Prius battery) and/or need an engine rebuild. This is
especially true on a Chevy Cobalt, which is not made to last like Toyota
products.
--
Peace,
BobJ

wrote in message
ups.com...

Marilyn & Bob wrote:
The fact is, you have no idea what you are talking about. Consumers
Union
did a calculation, which after admitting that they made some wrong
assumptions in thier first article, found that the Prius had a very
positive
savings over five years (based on 15K miles driven per year). And that
was
before gas went up from $2.50 (their calculation point) to $3.00 a
gallon.
More importantly, the carbon (global warming) cost of owning the Prius
(say
you bought back your impact on the environment) returned your break even
point to less than 18 months. If you count in the tax benefit (which
because of the tremendous sale of the Prius gets cut in half after
September, 2006), you actually start ahead from the original purchase.

Again it is easy to make statements based on your ideology, but totally
devoid of facts.
--
Peace,
BobJ


Well we looked at a prous and ended up buying a chevy cobalt. It was
about 8 grand less for cobalt, prius had NO tax break at the time and
since we hold onto cars a LONG time the battery cost, I couldnt get a
solid answer on that local dealers hadnt replace one at the time

when you take the 8 grand price difference and add the finance cost of
the 8 grand over the life of the loan its a lot.

10 grand or so? how much gas do you neeed to save 10 grand? plus the
cost of repairs with such a new model my friendly indenpendent mechanic
didnt want the servce work or most of it, so it would be dealer rate,
about twice of my mechanic.

add a replacement battery and payback is forever

I DO BELIEVE WE MUST MOVE TO A DIFFERENT FUEL BUT PRIUS ISNT
AFFORDABLE