Lifetime of a Toyota Prius

I am looking at purchasing a Prius and as I was researching I found an
article that quoted an Australian manager from Toyota on the lifetime
of the battery and the car. I have pasted the paragraph below

Toyota's manager of alternative fuels and specialized vehicles, Vic
Johnstone, concedes the batteries, like the car itself, are built to
last
less than a decade. "The life of the car and the battery are
supposed to be the same... around 8 to 10 years," he said. "We're
not expecting to replace them [the batteries]. In fact we only hold
one [replacement] battery in stock nationally."

This seemed a very short lifetime for a car to me so I researched the
matter further.

Other sites quoted toyota as saying the lifetime of the car is about
109,000 miles (174,400 km). Travelling about 9400 miles (15000 km per
year) this makes the lifetime of the Prius around 9 years.

If this is indeed the case it makes the lifetime cost of the Prius very
high compared to the average vehicle which should last at least 16
years (travelling 15,000 km annually).

Can anyone give me any more information on the accuracy of this
information or add to the discussion.

On Jan 19, 1:27 pm, "m...@kluge.net" <m...@kluge.net> wrote:
> (I suppose that if you counted all the vehicles disposed of early by
> accidents, as opposed to those scrapped by age/wear/repair costs, then
> maybe you could sufficiently drag down a vehicle's lifespan, but that
> doesn't help with longevity questions but more with insurance
> questions... (I guess this is similar to how infant mortality rates
> greatly affect a population's life expectancy.)

So, I guess the question is - how do you define vehicle life
expectancy? Is it how long the car should last if outside forces do
not interfere (just the health of the components of the vehicle), or
is it the average of all of the vehicles of that type last (even
adding in early deaths due to accidents)?

On Jan 27, 1:09 pm, "m...@kluge.net" <m...@kluge.net> wrote:

> So, I guess the question is - how do you define vehicle life
> expectancy? Is it how long the car should last if outside forces do
> not interfere (just the health of the components of the vehicle), or
> is it the average of all of the vehicles of that type last (even
> adding in early deaths due to accidents)?

I'll note that I was just watching the show "Understanding" on the
Science Channel, episode titled "Widgets" (from 2004), which stated
that the average lifetime for an automobile is only 14 years.