Hybrid Car Batteries
Many people have misconceptions about hybrid car batteries: "You don't want a hybrid 'cause every couple days you've gotta plug them in somewhere to recharge the batteries."

But interestingly enough, many hybrid car owners actually would like the ability to plug in their vehicles at night. This way, they can use that much less gasoline; the gas engine part of the hybrid would now need to run that much less when they made their morning commutes. Now, nothing's free--including household electricity. However, the idea here is that the additional charges on their monthly electric bill would still be far less than the added $3.00+ per each additional gallon of fuel. The 2008 and beyond hybrid electric vehicles are supposedly going to have the capability to plug them in.

Another popular myth is that the batteries only last a couple years at the most. Then you've gotta buy thousands of dollars worth of new batteries. This is far from true:

The standard warranty on hybrid batteries usually runs between 80,000 and 100,000 miles. Great advances in battery technology since 2000 have raised the life expectancy to a respectable level in 2007. Taxi services using hybrid-only cars are springing up everywhere...now THAT should raise the eyebrows of hybrid naysayers. The warranty for battery life may be at 100,000 miles, however, taxi services are seeing 200,000 to 300,000 miles with absolutely no degradation in battery performance. And we're talking several large taxi fleets in New York City!

If the batteries DO need replacing, they will cost between $1700 - $3000, not $10,000+ like many folks say.

But the key to this long battery life lies in "smart charging" where the electronic charging computer will not let the battery get charged above around 60% of capacity, nor let it drop below 40% of its capacity. This allows the new NIMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries

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