Hybrid cars are making a lot of dollar sense
Posted by Frugal on July 7th, 2008
I have always thought that Honda has pretty good mpg. But I’m getting about 16 mpg combined on city/highway on my Honda Odyssey. That is quite different from the statements on invoice: 18 in city, and 25 on highway. That just seems awfully low.
I have always driven Toyota, and this is my first Honda car. My mpg experiences with Toyota is much better. The actual mpg comes out to be so much closer to the invoice sticker. My next car will definitely go back to Toyota.
That brings my attention to Toyota’s Prius. According to a UK AutoExpress report, the next Prius will offer 94 mpg!! That is double of the current 45 mpg. At 94 mpg, even if it costs $10 a gallon, you will only spend 11 cents every mile. That is CHEAP. Okay, even at 45 mpg, it is 3 times better than my Odyssey. At $5 a gallon, the difference between 45 mpg and 15 mpg for 7500 miles is about $1700 every year. In 3 years, you can save $5K on gas, and in 6 years, you can save $10K on gas. That’s about 40% to 50% of the cost of a car.
It’s slightly harder to justify between a 25 mpg on my camry and 45 mpg on a Prius, when you have made your investment in the car already. But if Prius does come out with 94 mpg, I’m just going to grab one if I can, and dump my old car. Unfortunately, I think the waiting list will be really long, given a high gasoline price and long commute distance in California.
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:38 am
You may want to think again about the Prius, depending on how long you plan to keep it. My Camry is 11 years old (220K Miles), gets 27 mpg or so (4 cyl). At this point with a Prius I’d have to buy $10K of new batteries. Instead, I think I’ve got another 10 years on my Camry. (My only non-maintenance repair has been an oil pan gasket. I replaced my front brake pads at 200K. Yes, the brake pads lasted 200,000 miles!) If you really want lower TCO, you might try a slightly smaller Toyota… there are a couple models with excellent mileage, good reliability, no huge battery replacement cost in year 11. Speeding will kill your mileage also, so if you routinely go 5-10mph above the posted limit, you could improve by 5-15% by going 5 mph under the limit (if safe). By the way, my Sienna gets about 18-20 mpg, so I don’t see where Toyota has a huge improvement over Honda in terms of TCO. The Sienna needed a new transmission at 130K miles ($5K), I was dissappointed, but my wife’s driving style probably had something to do with it. It will be interesting to see the Prius’ weak points… I imagine shutting down and restarting the engine several times a trip will cause some parts to wear faster than a non-hybrid, but given Toyota’s quality rep it may not be an issue.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
For what it is worth my 2000 Honda CR-V was documented as 22 city 25 highway. I added a roofrack which various forums claimed took away 1 MPG. In any event 8 years later I still get somewhere between 20.5 and 23 city/local driving (lots of hills around here) and 24 to 27 highway, so at least one Honda vehicle does live up to claims. Also zero repairs in 85k miles. On the money side I paid it off in 16 months.
The best mileage I ever got was doing the highway 30 miles to work when there was a massive rain storm. All highway traffic was at 20 mph due to visibility. The gas tank needle basically didn’t move for the whole time consuming journey!
July 8th, 2008 at 2:42 am
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July 8th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I’m curious to know if $10K for batteries, as mentioned in the earlier comment, is accurate. I drive an ’07 Camry Hybrid and get 39 mpg in the summer and 40 mpg in the winter. The batteries are warrantied for 8 years. I probably paid about $5K more for the hybrid, but that was partially offset by a $2600 tax credit. Also, my state grants hybrids driving privileges on HOV lanes (w/ special license plates). That is a huge benefit if you commute during peak hours.
July 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
An updated comment on the site says the following:
That is not 94 mpg US standards, it is on the Japanese system, current generation prius got in the 80s. That is an improvement, meaning on the US test cycle it will likely be in the 50s.
July 8th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The $10K per battery set was based on research I did about 2-3 years ago. Hate to leave bad info somewhere, so I decided to check and it’s come down a lot… Prius just dropped from $5,500 to $3,500 plus labor (some Honda battery sets are down to $2,000.) I have to thank you for the question, looks like it’s time to consider the hybrid after all.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I currently own a ’08 Prius (7 months). I have never gotten 45 mpg- it’s actually been much higher – I average about 54 mpg. My highest one way trip has been 70 mps for a 19 mile drive in rush hour traffic.
As long as you drive cautiously, you can improve your mpg and therefore bring down the overall price of your investment. I bought my car in December when gas prices were lower and got a very good deal on it. I knew prices were going to go up too.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:52 am
I’m guessing the 94mpg car will be expensive as well. If there are a lot of people wanting it, then they can charge a lot for it. Its bad though, because this is meant to help the environment and not thier pockets.
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