Is the Prius Plug-in actually cheaper than a normal Prius after government rebates?

it depends on what state you're in, but in some places yes. in others, similar and in others just a little more.

 

A great many government incentives are reflected in next year's taxes. Sadly many buyers cannot 'see' to next year.

 

When I bought my base PiP, it also had nav and a back up camera to sweeten the pot.

 

I think car salesmen have learned not to push customers into vehicles that customers are not interested in or mentioned. When I bought my Prius, I told the salesmen what I wanted. He showed me the car and nothing else. We talked only about the V with ATP and nothing else. He didn't try to show me the IV with sunroof pack. When I bought my Sienna, I told the salesmen that I wanted an XLE with nav and BSM. This is the only time he mentioned that BSM on XLE is hard to find but are standard on Limited. Now a days, car shoppers are smarter than before and most of them do their homework before set foot into the dealer lot.

 

The tax credit doesn't mean you'll get that much back on your taxes, it pretty much just goes towards the taxes that you owe (not what you owe/get back at tax return time, but how much you actually owe for the year). So if you end up owing $5000 for the year, the $4000 credit will make it so you only owe $1000. If you've already paid all your taxes, you'll get $4000 back, if you haven't paid any taxes, you'll owe $1000 instead of $5000. However, if you only owe $3000, the $4000 credit will cover just the $3000 and the extra $1000 disappears.
If you're in a higher tax bracket, it can end up saving you. But if you're in a lower tax bracket and don't end up paying much in taxes, you might not see much or any difference in your taxes.

(Note: I'm not a tax professional and I'm just going off the best of my understanding. The wordage may be a little incorrect, but the idea is correct.)

 

Really? You don't get the $1000 in return? That sucks.

 

Yup. The best deal we had was net about $15,500 for two PiPs, before state taxes and tags. In late 2012, a guy from West Virginia and his dad went to New York to get two Pip's at about $25,500 then they got $2500 Federal and $7500 West Virginia tax rebates!!!! Sadly, actually understandably, WV ended their over-the-top tax rebate program on 4/15/2013 just one year ago.

With WV off-the-table, the best state PiP incentive we have is CA at $1500 + HOV green tag. Back in late 2012, CA prices were high on the PiP around $30,000 so some CA folks came over to NY, MD to get PiPs. Now it seems like CA PiP prices have come down as you say. However, the CA green HOV stickers are almost sold out, so you need to move fast if you want that perk (probably you'd have to pay extra $$ now for a green stickered PiP from a dealer).

PiP gets less respect from an incentives view point. For an all-electric car like Leaf or even Volt PHEV, some states like CO, GA, WA, NJ give $4000-6000 state tax incentive on top of $7500 Federal tax credit. My guess is at least 75% of Plug-In sales are in states which give large incentives (CA by itself is approaching 50% of Plug_ins sales).

 

As mentioned - the state and government seem to have a very excellent system of calculating/formulating taxes whereby you get a little bit off, but never that much. I discovered this after installing some high efficiency (expensive appliances) and not seeing much in the way of a real return which would make me smile, or pump my fist in the air.

That said - a little some is better than nothing, but not anything that would make the masses go out and get these vehicles vs. a standard car selling for less bucks.