Are Hybrids worth it?

[ChuckR]

I am just starting to look for a new car. I am thinking of a hybrid for the cost savings in town. A little luxury, safety camera system are also in the mix.
I do have some questions
1. I live in Las Vegas, Nv where it is dry year round.
The summer 3-4 months run in the 90-100's.
Regular Batterys take a beating so how would a Hybrid do?
2. Occasionally we take long trips so I am concerned about mileage when going at high speeds and longer distances between gas stations.

Thanks for information and pointers to other information.

 

[Arkaign]

Hybrids make sense for urban runabouts if you're not needing a large vehicle or anything particularly sporty. The Prius is a very capable applliance, and the biggest difference is in urban fuel economy, the start and stop stuff where you're usually going between 0 and 40-45mph. Many cars will get in the high 20s or low 30s at best in the city, while a Prius can just about double that.

HOWEVER :

Highway fuel economy is much closer. So if you're really concerned about that, a hybrid loses some of the luster. Also the Prius fuel economy drops rapidly with higher speeds. If you're pushing the little thing to ~80mph, it's gonna dip a good bit compared to say 55-60.

A more practical balance of $ for features/etc might be the new Focus, or even the new Sonata. Both get very capable fuel economy, don't have any long-term worries about batteries or out of the ordinary maintenance, and are very nice vehicles that are worth a look.

 

[ShawnD1]

Hybrids make sense for urban runabouts if you're not needing a large vehicle or anything particularly sporty. The Prius is a very capable applliance, and the biggest difference is in urban fuel economy, the start and stop stuff where you're usually going between 0 and 40-45mph. Many cars will get in the high 20s or low 30s at best in the city, while a Prius can just about double that.

If you look at interior space, a Prius is closer to a Corolla than it is to a Camry. I compared the Corolla and Prius cost of owernship, and the Corolla was cheaper by far. You would need to drive that Prius for the next 10-15 years just to recover the cost difference. It's also worth noting that the Corolla has a more powerful engine and better performance in every category.
If you want something cheap like a Corolla but with a hatchback, try the Matrix or Yaris. I don't really like Toyota anymore so I would probably get a Honda Fit.



There's an old saying about giving a fish vs teaching a fish. If you learn how to compare cost of the vehicle plus gasoline, you can compare any vehicles you want. First you need to figure out what your driving pattern is. For me, I drive about 20,000 miles per year, and my gas mileage very closely matches the government estimate for city mileage. How much do you drive? When you drive, is your gas mileage close to the government highway estimate, the city estimate, or the combined estimate? Use the one that most closely matches.
Next thing is to write an expression showing the cost of each car. If car A is $10,000 and gas mileage were 30mpg while my fuel cost is $4/gallon, it would be written as:
cost = $10,000 + (20,000 miles/year)*(1 gallon / 30 miles)*($4 / gallon)*(X number of years)

Then do the same for the other car being compared. Let's say car B is $20,000 but gets 60mpg.
cost = $20,000 + (20,000 miles/year)*(1 gallon / 60 miles)*($4 / gallon)*(X number of years)

When you're talking about time to recover the added cost of the hybrid system, that would mean the two cars compared have the same exact cost after that period of time. That means the two expressions are equal:
car A cost = car B cost

The only variable was X number of years ownership. If you remember your grade 8 math, you can simplify it down and solve for X

 

[JulesMaximus]

Hybrids make sense for urban runabouts if you're not needing a large vehicle or anything particularly sporty. The Prius is a very capable applliance, and the biggest difference is in urban fuel economy, the start and stop stuff where you're usually going between 0 and 40-45mph. Many cars will get in the high 20s or low 30s at best in the city, while a Prius can just about double that.

HOWEVER :

Highway fuel economy is much closer. So if you're really concerned about that, a hybrid loses some of the luster. Also the Prius fuel economy drops rapidly with higher speeds. If you're pushing the little thing to ~80mph, it's gonna dip a good bit compared to say 55-60.

A more practical balance of $ for features/etc might be the new Focus, or even the new Sonata. Both get very capable fuel economy, don't have any long-term worries about batteries or out of the ordinary maintenance, and are very nice vehicles that are worth a look.

I like the new Focus too. Good looks, nice interior, tons of options and decent mileage (28/38). If you're doing a lot of highway driving the Prius really has no advantage over the Focus.

 

[TraumaRN]

Experiences with my Fusion Hybrid:

I'm at 46,000 miles, just about replace my tires. Only other maintenance has been oil changes, tire rotations etc. Oh and an encounter with a rogue car door. Thankfully insurance covered that.

Been averaging about 45-48MPG per fill up in the summer time. Wintertime in Michigan I get 38-41MPG.

Let me say one thing before I explain anything else.

DRIVING STYLE DICTATES MPG MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

Now when it is really hot outside, heavy use of A/C will lower your MPG just like any other car. I've noticed no issues with the battery at all. And after 46,000 miles I've still got about 85% of my brake pads left. That is awesome.

Highway driving depends on a few things, your speed, whether you've got a headwind/tailwind and temperature(>50F is best for MPG) I've noticed highway driving is a crapshoot. I've easily broken 50MPG on the highway and at other times couldn't hardly crack 40MPG.

Best MPG is 65MPH or slower. Anything above that drops MPG in a hurry.

City driving just requires a very steady foot on the gas pedal. Smooth acceleration helps. Yeah it requires driving a bit slower on the highway but the fact that I drove from Michigan to South Carolina and back which was about ~1700 miles roundtrip and used 2 and 1/4 tanks of gas is incredible.

It drives and handles quite well especially for a hybrid and compared to a Prius it actually looks like a car. Acceleration isn't bad 0-60 in about 8 seconds(compared to 10 seconds in a Prius) and the suspension is firm but not floaty.

 

[saratoga172]

My mom has an 07 Prius with 95k miles. She does a lot of city driving 3-4 times a week, then a 200 mile round trip usually once a week. I believe she uses about a tank a week. Her lifetime average for fuel economy is right around 47mpg if I'm not mistaken.

She loves the darn thing, but I'm not a big fan of driving it. It gets great mileage though and has probably paid for itself.

As for maintenance I have no idea. I know she has only been without it a couple times. Once for sure was for new tires. The other was for the bug in the Prius braking software where it wouldn't brake if you hit a bump wrong. Other than that I think it's been good to her.

One thing to note about it. If you have the spare on the car it detects a lack of traction and won't let you go faster than 30mph.

 

[ShawnD1]

As for maintenance I have no idea. I know she has only been without it a couple times. Once for sure was for new tires. The other was for the bug in the Prius braking software where it wouldn't brake if you hit a bump wrong. Other than that I think it's been good to her.

My Corolla does this weird thing where the ABS kicks in like mad if I'm lightly touching the brakes while going over a speed bump. Is that what you're talking about?

One thing to note about it. If you have the spare on the car it detects a lack of traction and won't let you go faster than 30mph.

You can probably turn that off by holding the traction control button for a couple seconds.

 

[JTsyo]

Out in NV $3K more for a hybrid would probably pay for itself in a few years. If you sit in traffic, there's a difference between getting 0 mpg and 0 mpg with no gas burned. Before you decide though you should check to see what your trips are like. My wife has a hybrid Escape but takes the highway to work so there's not much benefit, when we got the car, she was driving in traffic and the hybrid was great. Also since we moved to a hilly area I noticed a drop in gas mileage but that would probably be true for all cars.

 

[saratoga172]

My Corolla does this weird thing where the ABS kicks in like mad if I'm lightly touching the brakes while going over a speed bump. Is that what you're talking about?

Don't think so. It was when Toyota/Lexus had the whole fiasco about runaway cars and there was a fix for the Prius. It really didn't affect anyone, but they sent out a notice anyway. No warning lights would pop up to my knowledge.

You can probably turn that off by holding the traction control button for a couple seconds.

Wasn't a big deal. Was driving the car to the tire shop for new tires anyways. It was only a couple miles away and I took some back roads. I just found it annoying and wouldn't have been fun had I been traveling far.

 

[Eli]

Why yes, yes they are.

But my hybrids aren't "normal", so YMMV.

 

[Arkaign]

If you look at interior space, a Prius is closer to a Corolla than it is to a Camry. I compared the Corolla and Prius cost of owernship, and the Corolla was cheaper by far. You would need to drive that Prius for the next 10-15 years just to recover the cost difference. It's also worth noting that the Corolla has a more powerful engine and better performance in every category

I don't disagree with the overall sentiment here, but I think it's just a little off.

2011 Corolla base MSRP $15,900 (132hp 1.8L i4, manual transmission, 104.4' interior volume, 28/35mpg)

2011 Prius base MSRP $22,120 (134hp 1.8L i4 + hybrid, auto transmission, 115.3' interior space, 51/48mpg)

So, the Prius has about the same power, comes with auto (auto adds more to the Corolla cost, though I actually prefer the compacts with manuals anyway), is about 10% larger, and gets dramatically higher fuel economy. The prius is almost 40% more expensive though. There is a bit more standard tech in the Prius just due to the nature of it being a hydrid (LCDs, options, etc). There's also a bit more sound dampening.

For a primarily city driver, at 20k miles a year at $4/gallon gas prices, 28mpg means 714 gallons of fuel used at a cost of $2,856. At 51mpg that drops fuel use to 392 gallons, for a total cost of $1,568. That's a savings of ~$1,300/year, or $6,500 over five years, which is slightly more than the price gap between the vehicles.

Obviously this can swing a bit in either direction. Lower usage and/or lower fuel prices will sway the value a bit closer to the Corolla, and the reverse is also true. If one believes that China/India will continue to put higher and higher demands on world oil production, then it's fair to assume that gas will probably never be much below current prices, and could possibly go a lot higher over the next decade. Swings like that put a premium on the resale values of high fuel economy vehicles.

A lot to think about for sure, but it's good to use hard data for the calculations.

Of course battery replacement costs should be taken into account for the hybrids, but I think the Prius is good for at least 5 years/100k as proven by the huge fleet of them already far past that on stock batteries.

 

[Arkaign]

^^ I should clarify that my example is only valid for a real urban type that doesn't get to enjoy much freeway cruising at speed, a la LA, NYC, Chicago, etc. Once you start to be able to get the highway fuel economy as the majority of your usage, the benefits of having a hybrid over a regular compact quickly become marginal at best.

 

[desy]

A purely city driver won't get anywhere close to 20k miles as thats above normal even for mixed driving, 16K is normal and thats with lots of HW driving thrown in
In Vegas the AC will always be running. Most typical is about 500 to 800 a yr in savings
Interstingly they just compared a cruise eco in this CDN article

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/glob...-run-than-hybrids-caa-reports/article2132488/

Pricing is a little different in Canada so it can't be considered an apples to apples issue when looking at the US

 

[Arkaign]

I think it depends on the city. I live in Dallas and average well over 20k/year, and easily more than 1/2 of it is pure city bs driving. Of course DFW has some of the worst sprawl of any city in the US, and I am constantly driving to support businesses on-site, so I'm not a typical case example. But it's not out of the ordinary here. Just looking at the used car market in DFW, there are a TON of cars that show ~20k/year annual mileage, and a lot of these probably never leave the metroplex.