The battery is warrantied for 8 years/100,000 miles, unless you are in California. No one knows how long the battery will last. If your Prius battery goes out after the warranty period, would you replace the battery?
there probably arent too many 200k priuses out there now, but battery failure has been quite rare >100k, conceding the technology has been around for 9-10 years so we dont know for sure if/when problems arise in significant number at 150k if not 100k. we will see, i believe there will be a relatively inexpensive secondary market for them in 7 years as more of them are on the road.
is the prius a sure fire thing to “come out ahead”? no, but imho there is a pretty good chance. obviously a lot will depend on price of gas, and like every good freeper i want to drill baby drill and “coal keeps the lights on”. still, betting against the common sense and competence of US govt seems like a reasonable bet. even if we start drilling, it will take years to reap benefits from some of these places.
I have 2 Priuses (Prii?). I got the first one for its “gadget factor” and the economy to ME of driving it. It has plenty of room, better performance than you might think, and flawless reliability. My 2005 Prius now has about 150K miles on it. I have had NO brake work done on it (other than adjusting the parking brake), and I just replaced the auxiliary battery (the one like every car has). The hybrid battery is still going strong, and as far as I know, except for a few hybrid batteries that were defective at manufacture, no hybrid batteries have “worn out.” Based upon the economy and reliability of the old Prius I bought another in 2008. Both have performed flawlessly. I only wish that there was good hybrid car manufactured by a domestic company that I trust.