San Carlos & Valley Springs Auto Repair

Hi peeps!     The word Hybrid has been a very active word since year 2000. What does Hybrid mean? Well, when you say the word today, A car comes into mind, most likely, a Toyota Prius.   Hybrid essentially is the blending of different things. For example, have ever eaten a Pluot? It is a Hybrid of a plum and an apricot. Hybrid in a vehicle means that there are more than one mode of propulsion. There is an "Internal Combustion Engine" or ICE and a form of high voltage electric motor blended to work together. The high voltage motor requires electric current. This comes from stored energy or the HV Battery. Typically, the HV battery is made up of many small batteries together in series to create a large high voltage battery. The purpose of this technology is to allow high MPG. The HV system will produce torque to allow the ICE to not work as hard, this conserves fuel. One t ... read more

This is something that we are starting to hear more often. The great news is that we, as The Hybrid Shop Bay Area, are able to bring your existing battery back to life. If caught early enough, we may not even have to replace any cells within that battery. Be careful to all who are looking to find a replacement battery. There are a lot of places selling used batteries, or remanufactured batteries. The process to condition a single battery is fairly simple, but to condition a complete hybrid battery takes the proper equipment and scientific process to keep them balanced. There are but a handful of shops that have this capability. We have performed our battery conditioning process on many of these “other” batteries, as the failure rate is very high. Don’t pay twice, take your vehicle to The Hybrid Pro’s to have it done right, the first time. So if your Prius Hybrid Battery is dying, The Hybrid Shop has the necessary skill and equipment to effectively p ... read more

With all the cars of today coming out with a Hybrid version and some manufacturers coming out with all electric cars, we wanted to help clear the air in regards to the longevity of the HEV batteries. These Hybrid vehicles have been out since year 2000. They have now been starting to experience the joy of "Battery Module Deterioration". Well, the truth is, there is no battery that lasts forever. If there is, the cost to manufacture it must be astronomical. The HEV batteries from most manufacturers are under warranty for 10 years 150,000 miles in California, so there is some sweat off the brow, and they seem to survive that long before the trouble light comes on. The concern is, that well before that time, the battery is deteriorating, thus causing some performance loss and MPG loss. Our philosophy is that we should be able to service, or "condition" the pack before it goes "bad", which you will understand in a bit. You can now purchase replacement "remanufactured" HEV batteries wh ... read more