The highest mileage Prius was a 2002 (1st gen) with 349,531 miles on the original battery pack. Sadly it was recently totaled in a car wreck.

In fact Toyota pays a $150 premium on Prius battery packs to help ensure they get collected & recycled.

The nickle is worth more than that salvaged.

That is one heavy vehicle and the engine is only 133hp plus the 70Kwh - 94hp from the motor man that is a lot of electric power - could power a car on the electric motor alone and for the battery to put out that much power it has to be pretty well designed also. The gas engine alone at 133hp vs Scion xB @106hp with approximate weights of 3500 lbs vs 2500 lbs seems to make it pretty slow! Looks like it has about the same or less interior space too and only for about $10,000 more in price. Length is 14.6feet Scion xB about 13 feet and a much shorter hood so the interior must be a lot smaller. Interesting that Toyota makes the hybrid drive ala Prius!

From wikipedia: Sanyo Electric Co., which first produced hybrid car batteries in a joint venture with Honda, built the 50 kg (110 lb),330V 5.5 Ah (would make it 1.8kWh storage) , 250-cell nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery pack for the 2005 Escape Hybrid. Electric only range max 1.5-1.9 miles.

The hybrid accidents scare me. We had a special pole in the shop in case someone had to be pulled off a hybrid with a problem.

Certainly, it's not a likely thing to happen, like a gasoline fire in a regular vehicle, but I don't think most people would completely prepared for watching for potential risks of a hybrid injury rescue.

Scions had dirty little engines. They've improved.

car (w/ 5spd in non hybrid)............. EPA/Carb score
Escape hybrid .................................8/9.5
Escape ..........................................6/7
2008 xB .........................................6/7
2006 xB .........................................2/2

Emissions is more important to some over absolute fuel economy.

Ford developed their own hybrid system. There was some possible infringement on Toyota patents, something like 10% of the total patents on the HSD. So both sides reached an agreement to avoid court costs. Neither side has come forward with the exact specifics, but Toyota got diesel and emission tech from form Ford.

As when powered off, the battery is physically disconnected in an accident.
The high voltage cables are bright orange and run down the center bottom of the car.

I believe the fuel line is more likely to be accidently cut by a rescuer.

I am not sure what the score means on the EPA/Carb numbers but any hybrid will probably put out less polution because it probably is not running the gas engine during part of the test or in the case of the Prius and Escape they operate the engine at higher rpm all the time and usually preheat the engine further reducing the emissions.

They also have tech in place to reduce evaporative emissions will the vehicle is parked.

Score is just a scale the car is put into based on measured pollution. Getting a fuel economy number is a happy coincidence to what the EPA is really testing. To get a certain score, the car needs to produce under the cut off limits for the tested pollutants. Using a number is easier than the SULEV, LEV, Bin 5, etc rankings

Most new cars are in that 6 to 7 range. To get a 2, the 1st gen Scions probably only had the minimum required emission control equipment. However, the TDI Jetta produces slightly less total pollutants than the the gasoline version. It does produce lots more NOx, which is why it's a 1 has opposed to a 6. It's possible the Scions failed at one thing in a similiar fashion.