Decision Help for my 1st Prius or Prime

i think you've nailed it. sounds like a personal decision. prime is pretty cheap with all the incentives, but no hatch space, spare and 4 seats, other than what you have already mentioned.

not sure i see any specific questions. at 24 cents/kwh, i love my pip and drive ev about 85%. i would own a prime if not for the reduced hatch. it is a lot of car for the money.
nothing wrong with a straight hybrid, i owned 2 before falling in love with electric driving.

all the best!

 

Only difference between a 2016 and a 2018 is a huge pile of money... The depreciation of a new vehicle is absurd... Because you've finally realized how much is too much after owning an Audi, don't go half-way... Get the same new car for way less money by focusing on a low mileage used 2016.

 

If you are set on a Toyota, esp NEW, a good dealer will work w/ you. All major Toyota dealers have a Toyota Rent A Car program. When my sister got a new Prius back in 2004, the dealer was super good/cool! She had no car, after years of living in NYC. The dealer let her use a Corolla for two months, FREE of rental charges, until her Prius arrived. She was only responsible for gas, and they just had to verify sufficient auto insurance, directly w/ the insurance company.

If I was in your shoes, I would tell the dealer you plan to buy from:

1) I want to be in a 2018 Prime rental, for one week, for free. This will give you more real world driving experience to form a love/hate feeling.
2) Next week, a 2018 Prius four, for one week, for free.
3) Next next week, a 2019 Prius, if you really want the newest car.​

After these two/three weeks you will know which one you really want.

In case you didn't consider this, but there is a RAV4 Hybrid. All three trim lines of the RAV4 have "intelligent" AWD.

Look into AmEx, AAA, Costco auto buying programs too. Very good prices, that are hard to beat and no inconvenience of the whole haggle buying process.

 

The amount of money you have to spend to get these kind of special "deals" from car stealerships, as well as the loss of all your money from depreciation in the first two years, might be good if you write that off as a business expense, but as a consumer buying a personal vehicle, it's a massively stupid waste of money compared to how much you save by buying a 2016 for cash from a private seller.

 

OP states he is interested in a YearEnd 2018 (regualr or Prime) and a current model 2019. To me, this implies buying from a dealership. IF this is truly the case (buying from a dealership), why not consider a RAV4 Hybrid? This would fit his other wish list of AWD.

Yes, buying new is a waste; no argument from me on that. It is ultimately OP's choice to spend how he sees fit. I am just pointing out something he may NOT have considered, which may or may not be of interest to him.

 

Well, yeah... If you want the red carpet treatment from the dealers, free loaner vehicles, lots of attention, etc., it comes at a steep price. One of the popular financial planners on the radio once said if you make a million dollars a year or more, buying new makes sense because the extra cost is trivial. But if you make significantly less than a million a year, the extra money you spend is unwise financial planning when a 2 years old car at 2/3rds the cost or less from a private seller is pretty much the exact same thing as a new car.

 

Filtering through all this, it seems OP's key points are 1) electricity is expensive, so a plug-in has little appeal, and 2) interest in AWD. Most other factors are a wash across the options being considered. I'll ignore the anti-new-car lobbying - coming from an Audi, I don't get the impression the OP is pinching pennies.

Unless the additional utility of a RAV4 is worth the MPG trade-off (nothing OP wrote suggests so), this doesn't seem overly complicated. If there's no great interest in EV-only operation, the Prime is a dead loser, incentives notwithstanding (again, we're not pinching pennies here), with its compromised back seat and cargo space.

So get the 2019 w/AWD-e - it's available on most trim levels, so that part's a matter of taste. The rest is just noise - don't make yourself crazy.

 

I won't help you choose, but when you DO choose, download the owners manual and read the chapter of customizations (often 6.2)
Make customizing it the way you want a condition of sale, the salesman will agree to anything. That way Service won't try to bill you for it later.

 

The planet is not an unlimited resource... The more value we place on knowing our consumptive limits and dial it back, the less future generations will be betrayed by our runaway train complacency!

 

I have not been following the price closely, but I am sure PRIME still have great incentives/discounts plus still available fed tax credit. For where you are, with state incentive, you should be able to buy PRIME much less than regular Prius. Basically, you will be buying a brand new car at the price of 2 years old used car.

 

Our nearby dealership is awash in Primes, about 5~6 last time I looked, and only one or two Prius.

 

What the heck? Why aren't people buying them?

 

Checked just now: 9 Primes and 3 Prius.

New Car Inventory | OpenRoad Toyota Port Moody

Something a little weird: they're ALWAYS 20 or 90 kms on the odometer??

 

Prime is hard to come by here and two local dealers don't list too many Prii either.