Asia's EVolution: How the Toyota Prius comes to die in Mongolia
Posted by Masterminded@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 18 comments
I just saw a fascinating short YouTube documentary on the ubiquity of the Toyota Prius in Mongolia: https://youtu.be/KyEVDmoh5lo?is=zPZGqOf8s8ABP5_L
Highlights include a nomadic shepherd herding sheep from his Prius and an extensive discussion of hybrid battery repair and recycling in a developing country.
bngrxd@reddit
The battery section was quite interesting. I wonder how many years/km they typically get before serious battery failure
thewheelsgoround@reddit
Fleet manager here, who has had \~1000 Prius go through the fleet over the past 15 years or so -- they're far more age and heat limited than mileage limited. The electrolyte inside the cells eventually dries out and becomes less effective. If a car has been primarily stored in a garage, expect it to last to (or beyond) these upper limits. If they've been stored outside, the lower limits.
1st, 2nd gen Prius, Prius C: 14-20 years, no mileage limit. These cars are so easy on their batteries that they really don't cause them to heat up much. They don't discharge or charge the batteries at high rates of sustained current flow.
3rd gen Prius, Prius V: 12-15 years or \~250,000km. These use the same cells as the 1st and 2nd gen, but are more aggressive with their charge and discharge rates. Curiously, you can take a "failed" battery out of a 3rd gen, put it into a 2nd gen and run it for another 3-4 years.
4th gen / Corolla Hybrid: we've never seen one fail. The oldest cars are only 10 years old and none have shown any issues at all.
There are drop-in Lithium replacements for all generations of Prius which improve fuel efficiency quite significantly, by simply having more available capacity -- they can regen more and longer on a long downhill than the original NiMH battery.
The batteries, in general, are very durable, very inexpensive (we've generally bought used packs out of crashed cars - $1200-ish, or $free if you know where to look), interchangeable between 2002-2022. You can open the metal housing of a 2022, pull the cells out and swap them into the housing of a 2005 and it'll work without modification.
Even if you choose to buy a new OEM battery at a Toyota dealership and have them install it, the fuel savings which have resulted by the existence of that battery far, far outweigh the cost of the replacement of that battery - it's like an order of magnitude of savings.
Masterminded@reddit (OP)
"Swapping a Gen-3 Prius battery into a Gen-2 to get another 3-4 years," sounds like a tip I imagine you would read on the Mongolian Prius forums. It's amazing to see the second lives these cars are having past 300.000 km.
thewheelsgoround@reddit
They’re wildly reliable and ultra easy to service. As a for-instance, when changing the brake fluid, you put the brake system into service mode - it will use the ABS pump to supply hydraulic pressure to the fluid. All you have to do is open the bleed screws and the fluid is pumped out automatically no vacuum bleeder needed.
For diagnostics, a Mini VCI cable cable - complete with a pirated version of Toyota Techstream - can be found on eBay for about $16, shipped - giving you dealership-level diagnostics of the car.
Recoil42@reddit
You've no MY2026 RAV4 units in the fleet yet, right?
thewheelsgoround@reddit
No, not yet. Lots of 2016-2018, 2019, 2025.
Toyota isn’t doing fleet allocations for the 2026s yet. We have tons of 2026 bZs, though.
Recoil42@reddit
I'd be VERY curious if you'd be willing to do a reliability write-up in the next couple years. The RAV4 is especially going to be interesting as it's gone to a new electronics system and is using a brand new generation of powertrain components.
Astramael@reddit
This is a mode that is quite common on newer Toyotas across the board I believe. My car has this function as well. I was first investigating this because I wanted to be able to cycle the ABS pump during bleeding to do it properly and move all of the fluid through. I pretty quickly found out that you can just feed the car fluid and it will do it for you. Pretty sweet.
thewheelsgoround@reddit
I’ve ridden in several with >600,000km on them.
V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit
I more interest how many old Chinese cars still running there.
bngrxd@reddit
This is something I'm dying to understand but I can't get a good handle on. How are the 10 and 12 year old Chinese cars holding up. The new midels are flooding markets around the world but it's not really clear to the average potential buyer how reliable older models are performing.
i_marketing@reddit
China doesn't specialize in ICE. China hasn't been that great at ICE, the ICE specialists are Japan.
China is good at EVs, that is what they specialize in. If you want a good ICE car, get a Japanese ICE car. If you want a good EV, get a Chinese EV.
You should be asking how 10 to 12 year old Chinese EVs are holding up, not how 10 to 12 year old Chinese ICE cars are holding up.
desf15@reddit
Keep in mind that Chinese car companies did massive jump in basically every aspect in last decade or so. 10-15 years old car are completely not representative of what they're selling now.
foxywoef@reddit
Mildly related but I just looked it up and apparently China doesn't have a maximum age for private vehicles anymore. I always figured Chinese brands would engineer their cars for max 15 years lifespan but that might not be the case anymore
Masterminded@reddit (OP)
Honestly, there are probably more used Priuses by now. Like the video said, pure EVs are rare, and older Chinese gas cars were never very reliable.
Recoil42@reddit
Pretty cool mini-documentary.
Kind of annoying how the description for the video describes these cars as failing quickly but the video itself is basically non-stop praise from mechanics and sheep herders about how tough the cars are.
thewheelsgoround@reddit
Also, it’s just not reasonable to import a 15-year old car on its original battery, have it fail at 17 years of age and say “it failed quickly”.
Recoil42@reddit
Agreed, very strange thing to say.