Your concerns are baseless.

The traction battery pack is warranted for something like 100K miles. If you did have to replace it after the warranty expires, a 1st gen Prius battery pack is appx $5K new from dealer. But last I heard, no Prius battery has ever had to be replaced due to wearing out. Including Prius taxis with over 200K miles. My father's 1st gen Prius has appx 100K and is running fine. By the time a new battery pack is actually needed, replacement battery packs will be even cheaper (and you may want the latest technology anyway).

Nothing happens to the battery pack when you are in a wreck. The tractionn batteries are typically located between the rear wheels, a well-protected spot where most fuel tanks are also located. Connections to the batteries are shut off by an accident, similar to how fuel cut off switches work. The cables from battery to engine compartment are located in the floor. The battery system is less dangerous than the fuel system that every car has. AFAIK and after checking, there has been no report of the battery system of the Prius injuring anyone in or after an accident.

Note the distinction between the traction battery pack, that powers the electric motor, and the teeny 12v accessory battery that sits in the engine compartment.

On the open road, hybrids like the Prius can be more fuel efficient than conventional cars because their gasoline engines are very small. The engines don't need to be larger, since the electric motor/traction battery provides additional power when needed. E.g. my Prius routinely gets 50 mpg on the freeway, driven "normally", with no particular attempt to get good mileage.

"Hybrids" that are simply an electric motor pasted onto a heavy conventional car with a normal-szed gasoline motors won't necessarily get great mileage. I think some of those "hybrids" are just marketing exercises. E.g. Lexus hybrid.

Here's my problem with that setup: It's ugly.
I mean, really ugly.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1180877811.jpg

Retrofitting solar panels on an average house often comes out that way, unfortunately. I'm all for doing my part, but I'd really struggle to pull into my driveway and look at solar panels jutting out the side of my house, or scabbed onto the roof.

However, through some cosmic fluke, my 140 yr old farmhouse has the roof laid out in such a way that I could lay panels pretty much flat and still have an ideal angle. I'm looking at solar air or water exchangers.

Soem of the newer homes with PV or passive solar incorporated into the designs are very slick.

Quote:

Now, this particular system makes no sense economically, since the family was already frugal with electricity. Back of envelope, their system has a 40 year payback.

Most of the stuff I've read about going off-grid starts like this:
Step 1) Cut you power consumption by ~70%. Tough pill to swallow

I agree, that install is ugly. I don't mind the look of solar panels on a roof, though. In my case, the roof is pretty high (3 floors up), so I'd never see panels up there.

I think you can cut consumption by a lot, without giving up any lifestyle. Energy efficient appliances, CFLs, tankless hot water heaters, insulation, new windows, shutting down phantom loads, etc.

The built-in solar systems are cool.

We're down 17% compared to when we first bought our house 3 years ago. Biggest difference was the new front-load washer. It uses 1/4 the water, and spins incredibly fast. A full load in the dryer only takes 35 minutes. We have electric baseboards, so we can only do so much. We've good a wood burning fireplace insert which gives great heat. Wood heat is another big energy saver, and good exercise too.

A guy up the road has a solar air exchanger. He claims a 15% drop in power usage. If he's to be believed, that's not bad for a $800 homemade system.

Downside: it's really ugly.

I can't wait for something like the Chevrolet Volt...

Nothing happens to the battery when you are in a wreck? Depends on the wreck, nasty stuff inside a battery. Price you quote is about half of what I have seen, but never really priced them.

I would do a straight up electric car to and from work, short commute, but still would be concerned about rupture of the batteries in a wreck.

20 yrs ago, when I was in college, I took a solar engineering course where thay just about proved to you that panels and retrofits can't work.

What we showed did work was incorporating passive solar into new construction. However, the most cost effective solution was super-insulation, where you use massive amounts of insulation and extra thermal mass, during new construction.

Well, there's baseless concern, and there's actual history of injuries. Can't help you with the former. On the latter, over 600,000 Priuses have been sold to date. How many instances have you found, in which the batteries injure people in a crash? I've found no such reports.

As for replacement price,

"in November of 2005, when asked about the price of a new Prius battery, Toyota spokeswoman Mona Richard said, "The service parts price for a new battery is $3000, but we have not had to sell a battery yet." "

http://hybridcars.about.com/od/hybridcarfaq/f/batterycost.htm

20 years is a long time. What was efficiency of PV panels, cost/watt, and cost/kW of conventional electricity, 20 years ago?

More important, what will these be in the future? The first will go up, the second will go down, and the third will go up.

Very little different today than 20 years ago. We focused not on direct energy conversion (I did that in advanced thermodynamics courses), but on Solar heating and cooling systems for residential and industriat settings. I designed a lithium-bromide and a ammonium nitrate solar operated cooling system for the course. Terrible inefficient, but using free power. Sometimes, "free" costs more in the long run.