I thought so too, but the Prius doesn’t have “toaster-sized” batteries, the individual cells are rectangular d-cells, put together into a rather large flat box (the previous Prius had round d-cells).
Have any car companies started using Nickel Metal Hydride for their 12-volt auxillary battery?
>> I thought so too, but the Prius doesn’t have “toaster-sized” batteries
Then maybe it was just your typical “journalistic license”. They don’t need no stinkin’ fact-checking...
>> the individual cells are rectangular d-cells, put together into a rather large flat box (the previous Prius had round d-cells).
That’s interesting! If you ignore the warning and tear apart just about any NiMH “battery pack” (like from a cordless power tool) you find round cells — the individual cells are commercial off-the-shelf items that come from not-too-many manufacturers, and are assembled into proprietary “battery packs”.
Just a guess, but it sounds to me like Toyota took the same route — assemble COTS cells into a proprietary battery pack — rather than do battery R&D themselves, to get the car to market quicker.