Hybrids are coming...get your name on the list

Toyota and Honda have had hybrids for about 3 years now. My friend has a Prius. He got one of the first ones available.

Have you been hiding under a rock? I'm thinking 5 years or so is when the first mass produced Honda insight went on sale. The hybrids have not been a big deal though....The insight and Prius are extremely ugly and the insight doesn't have any room, the Civic is nice and a fairly normal car but what's the point? The economy isn't that great. Now if Mitsubishi rolls out the all-wheel-drive Eclipse hybrid in '06 I WILL get exited. TG

On Sun, 23 May 2004 17:59:47 GMT, "TG" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

Using today's average gas price here, the typical 20k kms per year and city consumption (the hybrid forte), yearly gas costs are:

Civic Si (gas only) $1456 Civic Hybrid $892 Insight $710 Prius $728

I would say the Prius (or any hybrid) makes lots of economic sense.

Gas today here is 91¢/litre Consumption, city, from CanadianDriver.com Civic Si 8.0l/100km Insight 3.9l/100km Civic Hybrid 4.9l/100km Prius 4.0l/100km

From your analysis it looks like this type of vehicle makes sense where you live. I'm in the US and this past week E-85 fuel was on a promotional sale of US$0.85 per gallon. At this price, I believe that the annual fuel cost for an FFV Ford Taurus would be lower than the Insight. Admittedly, E-85 is not usually priced that low, but an FFV (Flexible Fuel Vehicle) Taurus is much more readily available and is more spacious than any of the Hybrids you listed. I believe that the Taurus would have lower initial and maintenance costs too. Too bad Subaru doesn't do FFV, Bi-Fuel CNG or LPG (the solution I like the best), or Hybrid.

I realize that your reply is based on the previous poster's claim that "the economy isn't that great" and that statement has to be put into context. For you, that statement might not be true. For him - and me - his statement is very true. Here is why: Even with what are historically high prices for gasoline (in my area it is actually E-10 fuel that is sold as regular petrol), it still is substantially lower priced than $0.91/liter. The recent "outrageously high" price would be about US$0.54/liter, and during bargain times it would be about half that price. With that low a price for fuel, even for what we consider high priced gas, it would likely take longer than the life of the car for the fuel cost savings to pay back the additional cost of a Hybrid or most any other alternate fuel vehicle. E-85 is the exception, because manufacturers are not charging extra for this feature. Unfortunately most of them aren't doing a very good job of advertising its availability.

Walt Kienzle

You may have missed a few recent articles in US newspapers regarding hybrids. It seems they get MUCH worse mileage than their EPA ratings. The EPA tests do not accurately measure the true fuel consumption of a hybrid vehicle.

Charles Perry P.E.

Note that they're still getting the best mileage overall. The big problem is that Toyota, et al, CANNOT use realistic numbers -- they are required by law to display and advertise the EPA numbers and as you note, the EPA's testing gives erroneous numbers for hybrids.

-FPtM

Don't forget the cost of batteries! I understand Toyota recently upped their warranty on the battery pack to 100k miles to help entice people to buy the Prius. Why? The article I read said the battery pack alone is $2000 US. Something to think about...

Rick

Hi,

FWIW, a Los Angeles TV station recently did a head to head with a Honda Insight and a Toyota Prius to see what they would do in a typical "drive around SoCal" kinda loop of freeway, city, etc. with lots of traffic all the way. At the end of the test, the Honda returned ~55 mpg, the Toyota ~59 mpg. Don't know how that compares to EPA specs, but we can't forget where "YMMV" originally came from!

Rick

Factor in the Toyota Echo and other high fuel economy gas only models that cost 1/2 as much as the hybrids....initial and overall cost are important, not just how much you save on gas. TG

The Toyota Echo can be had for under $10,000 at 38 MPG combined. The Volkswagen Golf and Jetta TDI models get 32/41 respectively (combined city and hwy) and cost thousands less than the hybrids. Hybrids are getting better and I like the development of new choices but they are certainly not answer for the vast majority of consumers at this point. TG

On Sun, 23 May 2004 21:32:13 GMT, "Charles Perry" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de:

These are not EPA ratings.

On Sun, 23 May 2004 21:31:48 GMT, "Walt Kienzle" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@enews1.newsguy.com:

[chop] [chop]

Of course all my numbers were local, including Canadian $ and ¢. So our gas is approximately 66¢US/litre. Our taxes are higher here.

Given the same size of vehicle, and that the Prius is actually a chunk larger than the one gas-only Civic, the ~C$700 per year will pay for batteries long after the warranty has expired. It is also assumed that the Prius (or Civic) will have the same bulletproof type reputation (or even better). Toyota or Honda know that people are going to jump on the reliability statistics and have probably spent more than 'normal' on quality control and design.

Gas will only be going up in price. Maybe not as dramatically as in the last couple of months, but given the world oil situation and China's increasing rate of consumption, up is a given.

That means the C$700 number is likely very conservative in the longer term.

I own a 2004 Toyota Prius hybrid, which now has close to 5000 miles on it, and also follow the Prius-2G group on Yahoo Groups. The following is my 2 cents on this whole hybrid thread and not specifically in response to the above messages.

I can tell you that indeed Prius owner mileage varies and this has been an active topic on the group. My wife commutes about 45 miles each way to work on I-66 in Northern Virginia and averages about 55 mpg and has seen one tank over 60 mpg. Others report from around 40 mpg to over 70 mpg!

If one buys a hybrid *solely* for gas mileage, they will find a relatively long payback period of several years as compared to other high-mpg cars that are not hybrid. However, hybrids -- and the Prius in particular -- offer a variety of features; such as, very low emissions, good overall driveability and size, interesting (indeed fascinating) technology and features in addition to the high mpg. An important feature for buyers in Norther Virginia is that the hybrids qualify for special Clean Fuel license plates, which in turn permit (through June,

2006) the cars to be operated in High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes with only the driver aboard.

Battery pack replacement expense is not the only issue. With all of the high tech components and computers, it appears advisable to buy Toyota's

7yr/100k service contract and replace the car about the time the contract runs out. Fortunately, history with the 2001-2003 Priuses bodes well for the 2004 model's reliability and longevity.

What is *important* to understand is that hybrid technology appears to be a viable alternative and that hybrids can and do drive with much of the feel and performance that one would normally expect from a car. It will be interesting to see how the Toyota Highlander, Lexus, Ford and other brands of hybrid SUV's perform.

Anyone interested in the hybrids should view the FAQ's at Yahoo Groups/Prius-2G or

Ed P Reply To address munged.

[snip]

I don't see what your point is here. My point was that you can't say that the previous poster was incorrect because of the circumstances where you live or how much you or some mythical "average person" drives. Your prices, higher taxes included, may make what you say true for you, but please don't claim that someone else is wrong because of that. BTW I noticed you deleted, without comment, my text about fuel in my area that costs about US$0.21/litre. No matter. Just as a basis of comparison, the last time I fueled up (aside from the US$0.21/liter) I paid about US$0.41/liter.

I also question your price adjustment from CAN$ to US$ for the cost of gas. Are your wages increased by 20% or so compared to someone working in the US to make up for the lower value of the CAN$? Unlikely. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I expect that a CAN$ being spent by you has the same impact on the family finances as a US$ spent by me. As an example of how prices are adjusted down to correspond to the lower value of the CAN$, I know that many cars (Chrysler minivans come to mind) that are identicaly equipped to the US conterparts and are sold for substantially less in Canada because of this differential - so much so that US residents buy their cars in Canada and import them themselves to save thousands of dollars. The problem has gotten so bad that US dealers have been given approval to deny warranty service for vehicles bought in Canada. Exceptions are made for Canadians experiencing warranty issues while traveling in the US.

Actually I dispute this number also, primarily because I only drive 12,000km per year. Again, averages don't apply to everyone, so you can't shoot down someone else's claim because of circumstances applicable to you but not to them. Even if the number is accurate and the savings will pay for the $2000 batteries, it wouldn't have also fully paid for the extra $5,000 to $10,000 initial purchase price (compared to a similarly sized conventional car, plus the markup above list price that many dealers are charging for these limited supply hybrids) and the extra insurance costs for a car more expensive to buy and repair.

Probably not a good thing to assume with new technology like this. I expect that the extra quality control and testing will make the quality ratings break even with the normal vehicles at best, particluarly with the low volume hybrid cars. Do you realize that Toyota only sold about 4,000 Prius' last year?

People have been saying this for the past 30 years, and I don't believe this any more now than I did last year, or the year before, or the year before that, etc. Adjusted for inflation, gas in the US is still less expensive than it was 20 years ago. Sure, we will run out eventually, but by that time I expect to be dead, my Subaru will be an antique, and technological advancements will have a replacement solution fully implemented. Crude oil prices are dropping already from $42/barrel to 40.50/barrel, but that is only a small part of why prices are high. The cost of gasoline is high in the US because of a drop in the number of refineries over the past 30 years - not a single new refinery has been built in the US since the early

1970's, but many refineries have been closed since then because of age, lack of profitability, or inability or lack of cost effectiveness to make improvements required by regulations (environmental, safety, etc). That, combined with with governmental requirements for different blends of fuel in various regions which change twice a year is causing a supply shortage in gasoline that causes a temporary shortage during the transition from winter to summer fuels that happens each Spring, and to lesser extent each Autumn. When supply finally catches up with demand, I fully expect prices to drop by 20% from their current levels. I have been doing my part - I haven't bought gasoline since the end of April.

According to my figures, I didn't even buy $700 worth of gas for all of my driving last year -- or any other year. My credit card company reports that I have bought $252 of gasoline so far this year (that doesn't include the $20 in fuel rebates I received from BP/Amoco recently). Even adjusting that amount to make it comparable with the CAN$, it would be impossible for me to save $700 unless I didn't drive at all. No hybrid needed for that.

I agree. My brother has a '92 Saturn sedan. 35/40 mileage. Then again, the car is made mostly out of fiberglass.

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On Mon, 24 May 2004 03:57:24 GMT, "Walt Kienzle" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@enews4.newsguy.com:

Nowhere did I say anybody was wrong. I just stated that for a typical driver here a hybrid can make economic sense. I also didn't mention that Venezuelans rioted a few years ago when gas went from 5¢ to 10¢ a gallon.

And I have virtually free health care. It's a different country with different tax structures. All I said was that hybrids make sense here.

Since the mini-van you're talking about is made here, there are cost advantages for us.

And I drive less than 5,000 kms per year so a hybrid is not cost effective for me. People need to do their own comparisons. Some people value clean air. As soon as the tax system is reformed to penalize polluting vehicles here, the hybrids will have major economic advantages.

Likely because they're limiting their quality control costs.

Which is why SUV and truck sales continue.

Which is why I always promote lowering consumption as a tool to keep your costs down - it is very effective.

I agree, but it seems to be an alien concept to way too much of our population. TV stations trying to make news are having a field day with runaway gas prices here in SoCal, and only one thing seems to be constant with the attitude of people interviewed: "I can't afford these prices, but no way am I gonna get rid of my gas hog or cut back on my driving." With that kind of attitude, is there any solution until we run out completely?

Rick

That's funny. They took the same attitude over the rolling blackouts. New power plants were needed to be built, but "not in my backyard" attitude prevailed.

Just an observation.

Hybrids are most effective in city driving -- lots of stop-and-go. This is the environment where internal combustion engines are least efficient. Here in the US most people (not all) tend to drive longer distances at constant speeds. I know I do. Hybrids lose their advantage in such long-distance driving. This is why they're so much more popular in Japan and congested parts of Europe than here in the United States. I'm not trying to dismiss the benefits of hybrids, just to put those benefits into a realistic context. The benefit a particular person will see from a hybrid depends a great deal on the type of driving he does. And my mother owns a Prius, so I'm not talking *completely* out of my butt here.

- Greg Reed