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What's interesting is because Toyota has been developing the NiMH for so long, it has achieved densities of approx. 150Wh/kg

This is an interesting point; why hasn't Toyota made longer-range plugin hybrids with these batteries, which would seem to be sensical? Looks like the largest battery in a plug-in Prius so far is just 8.8 kWh, according to Wikipedia.

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I would guess that there is not much room for them to develop the battery technology further, as it seems they are close to the absolute limit of the materials' performance.

So to start a plug-in hybrid program using that battery technology, could be very bad (outpriced, outperformed) if there was suddenly a huge leap forward in Li density and safety.

> why hasn't Toyota made longer-range plugin hybrids with these batteries

Because even Toyota found the Lithium works better for that application.

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