TonyB wrote:

and expect it to last the life of the vehicle.


Usual utterly mindless sales bull****. Note that they dont say
anything about what that 'life of the vehicle' involves time wise.

It's always amusing to see the "lasts the life of the vehicle"
statements by automakers. Yep, when the battery dies, the life of the
vehicle is over, and the battery lasted the life of the vehicle. As
Toyota stated regarding the RAV 4 EV, "The cost to replace the battery
is more than the value of the vehicle." We've seen similar idiotic
statements from automakers regarding other components, i.e. Saturn
timing chains, which, when they break, usually mark the end of the
vehicle ('see, we told you that the timing chain would last the life of
the vehicle!').

With a hybrid, you really have to be measuring fuel economy over the
long term to know when the battery capacity has diminished to the point
where it's no longer contributing to the fuel economy.