Prius vs Echo -- Cost of Ownership

Hi Bob,

The major factor that drove your wife's Echo cost of ownership to be so high, was $11.2K depreciation over nine years combined with very low usage, only 30K miles over that period.

Suppose your wife had driven the car at average usage which is ~12K miles per year. The $3,000 sale price might have been reduced to $1,000.

If she had driven 100K miles over nine years then the depreciation cost per mile would have been reduced to ~ 1/3 of the amount you calculated.

$11,250 depreciation / 30K miles = $0.375 depr. / mile
$13,250 depreciation / 100K miles = $0.133 depr. / mile

That difference of $0.242 per mile would have reduced your ownership cost of $0.43/mile to $0.19/mile.

The ownership cost you calculated includes depreciation and gas. It excludes insurance, registration, maintenance and repair costs which often vary between models.

 

Adding to Patrick Wong's observations, I find other flaws in this comparison.

No, but when comparing cost-per-mile numbers between vehicles, you could have calculated them over the same amount of miles. Instead, you chose a vehicle with more than twice the miles of the other vehicle. That's not a fair comparison by even the most generous standards.

You haven't yet made an fair comparison, even though you have the tools to do so. Compare the first 30,000 miles of use for both vehicles, and figure out a way to include purchase costs.

Actually, the methods used in the original post are quite reminiscent of those employed in "Dust to Dust". And I'm probably not the only one who noticed that you have also compared a vehicle that was purchased new to a vehicle that was purchased after two years of depreciation.

 

Was the Echo purchase new and Prius as used? Judging from the purchased price it seems to be the case.

 

The person who started this thread stated that the Echo was purchased new in 2001. The price seems awfully high; as I recall, base Echos were around $10K in 2001. So I'm not sure how they managed to pay more than $14K for even a loaded Echo.

The person who started this thread also stated that they bought a 2003 Prius in 2005 for $17,300. The MSRP of a 2001 Prius, however, was $19,995, so the 2003 would be at least that.

If the vehicles were financed, interest would also have to be added.

 

You repeated all of the errors that you made the first time. You simply put them into a table, that's all.

 

Nobody claimed to have any data. We simply pointed out some of the errors in your comparison.

 

The only thing wrong with the comparison is that a used vehicular always cheaper to run. It is not fair to compare between a used and a new purchase.
Second it also needs to prorate to the same mileage even if one is less for the cost per mile. Say if you sit one of the car in the garage for 0 miles for the life of the car, then the cost per mile will be astronomical, divide by zero.
What you shown is what you have achieved by you but not necessary by other people.

 

The only thing that I took from Bob's post was that this was his experience between two of his personal cars. I did not pick up
that he was saying that anyone else could expect to have the same exact experience that he did.

 

My 87 Camry has 354K miles and purchase new for $14.5K.
Gas was cheap then I used $1.75 as the average price and at 29 mpg.

Cost per miles = $14500/354000 + $1.75/29
= $0.04 + $0.06
= $0.10

Update:

My 09 TCH, assuming trade in value of $18K

Cost per mile = ($26000-$18000)/20000 + $3.00/39
= $0.40 + 0.077
= $0.48

 

My 2001 Prius TCO was 32 cents per mile. That based on transfering to a friend when it was still young at 109 000 miles odometer. That friend is now reaping the benefit (already described here for mostly-depreciated used cars) and achieving a lower TCO.

During my run, average fuel cost was $2.50/gallon. Any vehicle's TCO would respond to changes there, but Prius (and all other high-mpg vehicles) have lower slopes.

The size of the insurance chunk always amazed me (6 c/mi in California) - guess that's a pretty good business to be in.

I have previously suggested here that an NHW11 Prius driven out to a more reasonable odometer (300 k or more for some) would probably show TCO below 25 cents/mi. There are others here with complete data. I'm sure, and we hope they'll post later.

 

Reading comprehension FAIL.

Wow. LOL. So desperate to be "right" people have invented flaws right out of thin air!

Perhaps reading the post would help. He's not trying to fool anyone.

If you want to "compare" the two cars your way no one is stopping you. Patrick did that without resorting to calling the post unfair and flawed. Bob just posted his own actual cost per mile data, others "invented" flaws by assuming Bob was posting a "study".

Geez people.

 

Hi Bob,

Actually the acquisition cost of my 2001 was $0 because my dad gave that car to me in 2004. It would not be fair for me to compute a cost of ownership that excluded the value of that gift. My costs included fuel, insurance, maintenance and repairs (i.e., 12V battery, front struts / rear shocks, a few sets of tires, and the usual miscellaneous items like PCV valve, serpentine belt etc.) over the four years I owned that car.

I sold the car in 2008 for a fairly good price (preparing for my daughter entering college) so I really had a negative cost of ownership, all things considered...

My 2000 Mustang cost $29K (excl. tax & license) in 2000 and has <14K miles on the odometer. I'm too scared to calculate the cost per mile on that vehicle.

The high cost is not the Mustang's fault, rather that cost reflects my particular usage pattern.

In the Wilson household, if you want to make a vehicle's cost of ownership look relatively good, all you have to do is to take that vehicle over as your primary driver since you log 3x the annual miles that your wife does.

In general, if an owner wishes to minimize cost of ownership, that person would be well-advised to buy a car after 2 or 3 years of age (thus avoiding the major depreciation hit during the first 2 years.) Then keep the car in service until a major repair is required that is 50% or more of the vehicle's market value.

At that point, serious consideration should be given towards getting rid of the car, depending upon the owner's assessment of the vehicle's reliability and the cost of other failures that are likely to occur.

NHW11 vehicles are old enough so that the market value is quite low. Any significant repair performed by the Toyota dealer will likely meet that 50% threshold.

Hey, if you just have the front struts / rear shocks replaced by the Toyota dealer you might be faced with a $2K bill.

Considering the potential failures with the traction battery, steering gear, inverter, transaxle, etc. it would be a difficult decision to keep the car once one failure has happened, if the owner has to rely upon dealer service.

 

Since you are talking about your cost and not your fathers cost of ownership it would be perfectly fair to calculate your C.O. on the 0$ cost to you of the car, it would simply be a different number from someone else who had to pay for their car.(like your father). As long as you don't lie about the numbers or call it something that it's not, I don't see why it's not fair.

It just means if someone was to use your data they would have to take the gift issue into account. You could add some kind of value to the car but then it's not actual data but an interpretation using an estimated value.