Figuring out potential gas savings with a 2011 Prius

pjay, you spent about 16 cents a mile for CRV fuel, I'll guess at about $3 a gallon. $4 a gallon is 1/3rd more, so your future estimate puts CRV fuel at 16*1.33 = 21 cents a mile.

If your driving nets you EPA level fuel economy of 50 MPG in a Prius, a Prius mile costs 8 cents (400/50). So net fuel savings from the switch is 13 cents a mile. Keep in mind this is using your guess of average fuel cost of $4/gallon.

If you drive 500 miles a month, fuel savings amount to $65 a month.

----
You have not mentioned the biggest money difference: how many months remain to pay off you current car, vs how many for a new car. I think you will find that keeping you current car saves considerable money in your pocket. When the CRV dies, then by all means buy a fuel economical car!

 

Here's my stats for 2011:

9591miles, 203 gallons purchased. 47mpg annually. This is relatively low because of my northern climate.

The only way to know for sure is to know how many gallons you bought in 2011 to drive those 6003 miles in your CRV. Having said that, unless you're switching from a V6 or bigger, or if you drive a lot, it does not make economical sense to switch to a Prius.

Also, doing the math to figure out payback time for the "hybrid premium" has never worked for in favour for hybrid vehicles. This is because people equate the value of a car by features and performance figures for a given dollar amount. Based on size or fit/finish, they presume that a Prius is comparable to a Matrix, so they figured out that it takes a ridiculous amt of miles before breaking even. OTOH, if they compared a Prius Five to other $30000 cars, the Prius is slow, boring to drive, no V6, small, no "name brand", Corolla-like interior...blah blah blah. I never tell anyone to drive a Prius to save money. You buy a Prius because you like it.

 

Welcome. Don't calculate by tanks, but by MPG and cost of fuel. I'm building a fuel use record for all three of my vehicles on fuelly.com. My numbers so far:

Prius: 45.2 MPG, $0.075 per mile
LS430: 24.8 MPG, $0.148 per mile (uses premium fuel)
LX470: 13.9 MPG, $0.264 per mile (just started, uses premium)

 

you'll save somewhere in the numbers above. will that pay for the new car in your time frame, or is that not important?

 

That does seem like convoluted arithmetic. I would go by:

Miles Driven Per Year / MPG * $ per Gallon

In my case:

25,000 / 48.5 * $4 = $2,061.86
versus:
25,000 / 24 (for CR-V) * $4 = $4,166.67

Or in your case:

6,000 / 48.5 * $4 = $494.85
versus
6,000 / 24 * $4 = $1,000

My average fill up is about 9 gallons, btw.

 

With those low miles, it's tough to justify a Prius on cost/savings alone. WHere the Prius REALLY shines is when you get up into the 20K + miles per year range.

My savings came to over $200/month with the Prius compared to my 20 MPG RAV4 at around 23K miles per year.

At 6K per year ... I'd only switch if you really just want a Prius.

REV

 

we all have our reasons. there are no criteria to meet. every car purchase is based on personal reasons. emotional, economic, practical, etc. fuel savings are often considered in the prius equation, but i bought my last two for a variety of reasons, not the least of which were environmental and geopolitical. all the best with your decision!:thumb:

 

Some of you are probably too young to remember the two gas rationing episodes in the sevendees. My other car was a moped that got 100mpg, so I could do a lot of short trips with that and save. I even commuted with it some. So if it comes to that again, we are set. Geopolitical are of an even greater concern, but they work together. Oh yes, the environment. I forgot about the 800 lb gorilla.

 

Pjay,

It seems like you have a handle on the gas savings. Your current car is 6 years old and based on your miles per year might have 40K plus on the clock. You are likely looking at some items coming up like battery, tires, belts, brakes and coolant changes. A replacement vehicle will eliminate most of these types of costs for a period of time and also provide peace of mind. It is rarely economically beneficial to trade a vehicle that works in for a new one. But if you want to and don't want to deal with upcoming maintenance then your time and peace of mind have a value.

A new prius has no belts and is very easy on brakes.

 

In 73 it was a free for all. In 78 it was odd/even (odd tags on odd days, even tags on even days.)

I never got the nickel thing. 100# of nickel versus an extra ton of steel for a pig SUV, I mean big. They have similar melting points, I think nickel is a couple hundred degrees less than steel. Perhaps the separation process is bad. Anyway, where ever you concentrate energy you are going to have toxic conditions - even when you concentrate sunlight for goodness sakes. The thing is, you can do that, or burn a few hundred extra gallons of petroleum a year and vent the exhaust gases directly to the atmosphere instead. How does that sound (he said rhetorically?)