Would you recommend the Prius PHEV?

Saves my wife 30 minutes commuting every day here in California.

That works out to be 3/4 of an entire week every year...that is a lot of time savings...

Yep, I would recommend it if you could save that much time.

Now as an electric vehicle, no way...if you want to be green buy a true EV or just the regular prius.

 

why a regular prius over a pip?

 

1) Cheaper
2) Spare tire
3) Bigger gas tank = longer range on long trips
4) No fear of potentially ultra-expensive battery pack replacement after 150,000 miles

But I do love the extra EV driving. Electricity is excellent.

 

1) maybe? Depends on when you bought. I paid about the same price for mine as what a 2 was going for at the time. And obviously the PiP has many more features than a 2.
2) Some people really care about this, but it's just not something I worry about. Even on super long trips I just bring a fix it kit and an air station. (and a cell phone).
3) It's only like a gallon larger. I haven't found that I miss the extra 50-80 miles. I usually need to get out and stretch before a full tank anyway.
4) Another fear I don't have. Many of us at or near 100k miles have seen very little battery deterioration. I'm extremely confident I could get 300k+ miles out of this pack with usable EV life.

 

PHEV base comes standard with heated cloth seats, Entune w/nav, backup camera, wheels that don't look funny, silver door handles, silver rear hatch trim, headlights with blue in them, all clear taillights, and the ability to go electric-only over 25 mph (all as opposed to the standard Prius). They are very reasonable on the secondary market as well. Ex: 2012 57k $13,500


iPhone ?

 

I think you're grasping at straws.
1) The PiP costs more. You got a special deal, but you can't compare one special deal to the other car's MSRP.
2) The lack of spare tire compared to standard is a negative. It just is, even though I've never needed it.
3) Longer range means fewer trips to the gas station.
4) None of us know yet what will happen when the battery gets old. With standard Prius, there are a lot on the road, so used and rebuilt packs are plentiful. With the PiP, we just don't know. Hopefully, if it gradually deteriorates, the car becomes like a standard Prius and goes for 300,000 miles until it's ready for the boneyard. But we don't know yet.

 

I think we will just have to agree to disagree then. Please don't insult me by telling me I'm grasping at straws.
As for #3: You could argue the exact opposite. When charging gets me an extra 100-200 miles every tank I could argue empirically that I go to the gas station less often than a standard Prius.

 

i have to disagree with the used and rebuilt packs. most peeps with a bad battery still seem to be between a rock and a hard place.
certainly, the pip battery will be even more challenging.

 

I did not mean to insult you. But if your car salesman didn't mention the spare tire issue, it would be pretty sleazy.

I agree that if you do a lot of only short-range driving, you can get 1,000 miles to a tank pretty easily. And the range of PiP is way better than the average car, I only wish it held another gallon or two.

None of these are reasons to not buy the car, but the question was what are all the pros and cons.

 

Spare tire is a big deal, for me. If I get a flat in a not so nice area, I don't need to wait an hour for a tow. repairing a tire on the road is not something I care to do with crime and bad drivers. 10 minutes to slap on a spare is much safer.

Yes. range matters, but not just on long trips. With 110 miles total commuting every day, even with a Prius I have to gas up twice a week. That's bad enough as it is, but in the dead of winter, when it's 0 and the wind is blowing, it really frosts me to give my money to OPEC so often and in those conditions. A 600-mile range would be awesome for me.

 

but you're not giving more money to opec with shorter range, and with pip/prime your giving less than lift backs.

 

IMHO ... You need to leave Prime out of this discussion.

 

There must be a "sweet spot" for the PiP in terms of EV/HV ratio - for those who are high EV milers vs those who are more traditional commuters with a 10-30 mile daily commute vs those with a much longer 30-60 (or more) mile commute. I wonder if anyone has taken the time to look at these different groups and then compare the groups PiP vs regular Prius. Seems like there'd be some kind of rubric that might help a buyer pick the best options for their typical driving situation. Car builders won't like it though…

 

yep, the sweet spot is right here: 4 year and 4 months of ownership, 44,000 miles, 29,000 65% ev and 15,000 35% hv. 5-6 days a week all ev, and 1-2 days 100-150 mile trips.

 

Fuel prices enter into PiP a little bit...if you go back to these pages in 2012 gaso was $4/gal and just about everyone here agreed gaso prices could be as high as $8/gal by 2016 (now we are at $2). On the high cost fuel basis PiP could save a lot of money for those able to work within the range.

Now we are scratching our heads wondering why PiP? I still like the idea of a mild plug-in myself, but my opinion is not main stream. Now the plug-in focus has shifted from fuel savings to EV drive quality.

 

Agreed on the 2012 gas at $4 / gallon. That was a HUGE motivator at the time.

SM-T710 using PriusChat mobile app

 

Spurred me to get a regular Prius at the time.

 

For me it was a simple equation. Way back when Toyota first came out with the Prius, I was really impressed with the technology that I heard about. I misunderstood most of it. But I think the idea of regenerative braking really knocked my socks off. I wasn't in a position to buy one, and I couldn't justify the extra cost. But I remember thinking that if it could just plug in and top off the battery it would be really awesome. All these years later I was looking at Corollas and Camry. I was still curious about the Prius but not seriously considering it. The PIP was there on the lot, and I asked if I could test drive it. I didn't even realize it was a plug in yet. Once I realized it was a plug in, I was done looking at other cars. It was an impulse decision based on my earliest ideas of what a Prius was and what it could be. And so far it has turned out to be awesome, just like I though it would be.

 

after 8 years of driving prius, i just wanted more ev.

 

after 8 minutes of driving pip, i just wanted more ev.