Pruis Plug-in question(s)

It is worth it if you ate doing a lot of in town driving because u r driving the car under 62 mph as opposed to highway where the gas engine is always on. I plug in town too so find the nearest Plug in charger where you live.

 

welcome! there is virtually zero ev in a regular prius, and using it will decrease your mpgs. the pip will give you upto 16 miles per charge depending on speed, acceleration and a/c use. the pip does not start the engine until ev runs out, (with a few caveats) unless you want it to, whereas the lift back always starts the engine to go through the warm up cycle.

 

It is not worth it in a monetary sense. It is hard to recoupe the plug-in cost bump (relative to Prius hatchback) in gas savings ... Unless you wait for Toyota to offer a big cash bonus. My wife got $4650 from Toyota when she bought her 2012 Plug-in-Prius (PiP).

The Prius plug-in is a great beginner electric vehicle as it gives the owner a taste (approximately 12 miles) of electric powered driving while always being able to fall back on the amazing hybrid system that delivers one of the best fuel efficient (even better than non-plug-in because of bigger battery) rides that does not have to sacrifice anything. If you want power, put it in power mode and press the gas pedal. If you want range, just fill up the gas tank. No range anxiety or big deal if you forget to plug in.

Good luck finding the right vehicle for you.

 

agreed, with todays gas prices, even a lift back is a loser, monetarily.

 

Well, I went to my son's house that's 50 miles away. I went there on a fully charged battery. Left there without charging the battery and got 61 MPG round trip. Going 70 MPH on freeway

 

I've owned my PIP for just over 3 years. I have ~26000 miles on it, 65% are EV (~17000 miles). 90% of the time I charge it at work for free. So I've saved about 17000/50 or 340 gallons of gas. I've spent $603 for 161 gallons of gas in that time...or $3.75/gal and 55 mpg.

I'm using 50 mpg for all the shorter EV trips, but it could easily be as low at 40-45 mpg for these trips. So I've saved at least $1275 on gas...probably more like $1400-$1500 when accounting for better short trip efficiency. And I can go for a week or two or more many times waiting to buy gas until I see a better price...probably saved another $50 there.

If I had to pay for all the electricity I've used it would be 3050 kwh times my rate...which was mostly $0.11 - $0.13 during this time. Or about $366. My utility rates are now higher than this (0.15-0.17), but I just got solar and my 25-yr price is about $0.07/kwh or lower. Typically, I have charged at home 1-2 times per week (the remainder at work everyday) so this is about 200-300 kwh in total for 3 years.

Net result...the PIP cost somewhere around $3000 - $4000 more than the almost the same liftback at the time. I got $4000 in federal and CA rebates and I'm saving $400-$500 per year.

Mike

 

Short trips city drivings are best with EV miles. You avoid the gas engine warm ups.

PiP highway is rated 49 MPG instead of 48. PiP was tuned for short city trips or very long highway drivings. It also does great in other types by blending the two power sources.

 

Why does the famous MPG chart show 100 mpg at 20 to 25 mph which will be mostly EV? You couldn't keep the ICE running if you wanted to. It seems there are situations where the regular Prius does use EV efficiently.

 

100 MPG would indicate that the 50 MPG gas engine would be running half of the time. Say, over 100 miles distance, 50 miles would have the ICE running and the other 50 without. All the energy are still from gas, either directly or indirectly (charged/discharged through battery).

 

i'll go with usb's explanation ^^^. but my point to the o/p is that, if you buy a lift back, purposely expecting to travel any distance on ev as some newbies do, that would be a mistake. are there times when the computers doecide ev is called for? absolutely. and even a few scenarios where a seasoned veteran may use some on their regular commute, knowing the battery will be recharged by a downhill or engine warmup.

 

Yes, so the EV operation for half the time contributes to the mpg rather than reducing the mpg. So "using EV will reduce your mpg" is simply an incorrect statement. However, letting the car decide when to use, or not use, EV gives good mpg.

 

It can be a correct statement if you don't get 50 MPG when ICE is running.

If ICE spend energy to charge the battery, you may not get 50 MPG. So, it is a balancing act between keeping the ICE off and not use so much gas when the ICE is running.

 

Depends if you're buying new or used and where you live. I bought used and live in NC. Used plug-ins around here are only slightly higher then a regular Prius. Since we plug it in all the time and make a lot of short trips it does make financial sense for us to buy the plug-in. I went almost 2 months and about 850 miles on my first tank of gas and it wasn't empty when it got filled (less than 8 gal). With the plug-in we get 55+ mpg in hybrid mode on the highway.

I disagree with the comment that the Prius isn't worth it financially with today's gas prices. We're still more then double the cost of gas from 15 years ago. Just because gas is down from it's highs doesn't change the fact that it's expensive. Moving to a regular Prius from most other vehicles will cut someone's gas budget in half or close to it. Plus the regular Prius is very competitive on price. Add these things up and the Prius makes perfect sense for those wanting to save money.

Once the Saudis believe they've hurt the smaller oil companies enough oil prices will go back up. When oil goes back up the value of the Prius will also rise. If you keep your cars a long time then a Prius makes a lot of sense at today's reduced prices.

All that said, I would not buy a new plug-in unless there were large incentives that I could take advantage of. Not everyone can take advantage of the tax incentives.

 

The thing about city driving it depends a whole lot on trip length.
The regular Prius gets great city MPG, but that's only after the car is warmed up. If you are doing a whole bunch of really short trips, the regular Prius can give you less-than-hoped-for MPG, because MPG is low for the first 5 minutes.

The new Gen4 Prius coming soon will (fingers crossed) be much better for short trips. Prius v owners say the v is much shorter warm-up deficit, and we hope that will be true for the next Prius Gen4 too.

As far as Hybrid monetary payout, I agree with Bisco the monetary payout is questionable for Hybrids. The hybrid car cost delta is generally accepted to be $3000-$5000. Since there is no subsidy for Hybrids (except in DC), the owner must shoulder the cost burden as well as state and local taxes which can easily approach $1000-2000 extra for a Hybrid depending on how your state taxes cars. My state is among the worst with a big annual, progressive with car value, car tax. Then to make matters worse, some states are slapping extra fees on Hybrids, which over 12-yr average car life, approaches another $1000 tax. If you put on >15000 miles per year, you might pay it off, but that assumes cost of gasoline goes back up (which I think is not going back up).

Plug-ins a little different math due to subsidies, etc. Used cars different story too but those of us in non-CARB states bear more risk of paying for failed battery. PiP1 of course almost gone for new car purchase as production was reportedly halted in June.