A person mentioned that in the mining of the core for the battery is only mined or discovered in the USA. It Need to then be sent to Japan to be smelted. Then the vehicle is shipped back to the United States to be offered. – Supposedly the pollution brought on by the miners, the transportation to and fro, and smelting cancel out the pollution savings of the Toyota Prius.
If this IS true can I get PROOF.
Thanks for the two informative answers. Too challenging to choose.
Solution by Sean
Actually, the plant that manufactures the batteries for the Toyota Prius are located in a rural area of China. This region of the nation has no pollution manage laws, and as this kind of, dumps toxic chemical waste into the regional rivers on a everyday basis. 1 google search and you can come across the area of the toyota plants.
Answer by JerryJ
No, it’s not correct.
one. Some of the nickel for the NiHM batteries comes mostly from the Sudbury, Ontario, Canada mine. There are other nickel mines all through the planet. Toyota is not saying how a lot comes from wherever.
two. The details employed by the detractors comes from the 1960s when the mine, like most all mines, were pretty negative environmentally. Throughout the 1980s the mine was cleaned up and it now wins environmental awards from Setting Canada and other individuals. (AFAIK, there weren’t a lot of Prius produced in the 1960s and 1970s, any you discover really should be really worth a fortune).
3. Only about one% of the mine’s total output is used for NiMH batteries of all kinds. A lot of the other 99% is utilised mostly for tableware and automotive chrome although there are a lot of other uses for nickel, such as coins.
4. All vehicle manufactures ship supplies and autos more than the world. Toyota is no worse than any other. Note that most of the Toyotas sold in North America are made in North America and with 80% of parts currently being supplied from North America. The Prius is an exception to this. The Camry hybrid is produced in the Kentucky plant.
five. The Prius sold in Japan, Europe, and North America are created in Japan in the Tsutsumi Plant. There is a plant in China but Prius from there are only offered in China and I feel they are diverse than the ones marketed elsewhere.
6. The Prius is created in a zero-landfill factory (so are many other Toyotas).
7. There is a program to manufacture the Prius in the Mississippi plant that’s currently getting built. There is no date set when the production might start off. (I believe they will start off producing Corollas there until the “kinks” are worked out, although that might alter).
eight. Most of the plastics in the Prius are bio-plastic rather than petroleum based.
9. A excellent portion of the repair manual consists of directions on how to recycle the various components. For illustration, the wiring harness can be removed with a single pull so the copper can be recycled.
10. Toyota, Honda, and VW are making jobs in America although the so-known as American firms are shipping jobs to China and Mexico as fast as they can. I think I will stick with the auto companies that generate American jobs.
Solution by CAB
It would be extremely tough to come up with difficult and quickly numbers for lost savings considering that for one issue we have no idea what Prius owners would be driving if they weren’t Prius owners.
Another point to contemplate about all round pollution: all those storage batteries will wear out, and batteries are terrible polluters if not disposed of appropriately and when they are disposed of properly it takes very a bit of power to do so.
I also suspect that when these vehicles get older and the time comes to replace the batteries the replacement price will be far more than the overall really worth of the car and men and women will get rid of them rather of keeping them on the road, incurring much more pollution and energy losses in scrapping the old autos and purchasing new replacements.
Lastly, the Prius gets about the same mileage as a late 80s Honda CRX, which needed no new technologies and was a much more entertaining vehicle to drive…..such is “progress”