Breakeven: It's getting shorter, says USA Today

[abq sfr]

Hybrid premium payback time depends most on the number of miles you put on the car, and thus the amount of slush money to Dubya's Arab friends. If you go 300 miles a week, your payback time will be half that of going 150 miles. I wonder how many miles per week or per year these media articles assume??

[daniel]

Originally Posted by omgitsroy326

Let's do it simple way

Cost
Camry Hybrid > Prius

MPG
Camry Hybrid < Prius

So why does it take longer to get your money back in a prius? I'm really confused...Are they comparing a prius to a Fully Loaded v10 camry or something? i don't get it .. someone please explain

Originally Posted by dwdean

The best that I can see that they did was compare the Prius to some other model (probably the Camry, but I'm guessing.) Does anyone have any idea what kind of methodology they used for this? I'm sure that this has got have been discussed before...

The article states that the "payback time" for the Prius is based on a comparison with the price of a non-hybrid Camry.

I've driven a Camry (it was a loaner). I didn't care for it. I'd say the Prius is worth more than a Camry, but since there is no non-hybrid Prius, the comparison has to be a judgement call, and it's understandable that a reviewer who's never owned a Prius would decide that the Camry is the equivalent non-hybrid car.

It's faulty methodology, but still a positive article over all, since the claimed payback times are short enough that John Q. Public will recognize the advantage of a hybrid.

[Godiva]

I don't get the whole "payback" thing.

You buy a car. You pay for the car. You can choose to buy a cheap $13,000 or an expensive $45,000. Does anyone expect the $45,000 car to pay them back or pay for itself?

I don't calculate the price of the car into anything. When I bought my Prius I paid about the same as when I bought my 1996 Saturn SC2 coupe. And the Prius has the same or more than the Saturn except for leather.

So I consider it starting even.

But...operating costs are way less. Less gas. Less maintenance. Few oil changes. So it's saving me money.

Fini.

[paulccullen]

Originally Posted by dogfriend

What kind of payback period can I expect for a Hummer H2?

Your Hummer's payback period (in years) is equal to the MPG of a Prius running in EV mode

[tripp]

I'm with you, Godiva. What about leather seats? No one talks about the leather seats premium or the leather seats payback (which is infintely long, I suppose). The whole thing's a bit silly. The camry's about the closest thing and a couple of years ago on here, when the Prius was getting compared to the Corrolla, we were all up in arms. The Camry's about the same size, but is obviously quite different to the prius in a lot of ways. There is no good comparison, but it's about the closest one.

[tripp]

Originally Posted by abq sfr

Hybrid premium payback time depends most on the number of miles you put on the car, and thus the amount of slush money to Dubya's Arab friends. If you go 300 miles a week, your payback time will be half that of going 150 miles. I wonder how many miles per week or per year these media articles assume??

I think that they typically assume about 15K mi/year.

[dogfriend]

The leather seat payback period is 2 days.

[hill]

Speaking of "payoff" ~ the paper had an article about tractor trailor rigs ... many older rigs are being turned in for more aerodynamic rigs. The article stated that even those bigol' exhaust stacks cause too much drag. New rigs are much more streamlined, but cost big bucks ... but they raise the mpg's from FIVE mpg's ... to SIX mpg. What is that ... roughly a 17% increase?

Funny the article didn't say it's not worth it ... due to a long "payback" period. But the media was always real quick to run "payback" up the flag, when it came to the Prius. Maybe truck drivers know what many folks are oblivious to ... that THIS year's fuel costs will look cheep, compared to next years, and the years to follow.

[tripp]

Considering how many miles are put on a rig in one year, it's not an issue. They're arguement is that for the typical user, they don't recoup their costs in a timely fashion. Of course, there are all sorts of issues with that argument, but they always assumed a pretty low total miles driven.

For semi operators a 17% reduction in cost (and that's just for the fuel, that doesn't include the time spent sitting at a pump not moving) is massive. Once you put the skirts and tapered ends onto the trailer it gets even better. I can't believe those things aren't ubiquitous already.

The next thing that needs to be done is installing electrical into rest stations so that truckers don't have to idle while they sleep.

[hill]

Originally Posted by tripp

Considering how many miles are put on a rig in one year, it's not an issue. They're arguement is that for the typical user, they don't recoup their costs in a timely fashion. Of course, there are all sorts of issues with that argument, but they always assumed a pretty low total miles driven.

For semi operators a 17% reduction in cost

. . . . . snip

I was thinking if they sold a 20yr old rig for 50K ... but a new one cost (just checked a web site for a new Kenworth) $130K ... that even driving 100k miles a year ... the "payback" would be a while to recoup the 10's of thousands. maybe not? either way ... you never hear the 'payback' word flung around, except for hybrids.

We needed a new car due to high mileage on the existing SUV. The cost of the Prius was less then a new SUV, and the mpg's on the Prius were way up there, so the choice was easy.