Hybrid autos save money in long run, study finds

My insurance went down, significantly, when I purchased my 2006 Prius (by $10/month). I had been driving a 4-wheel drive GMC Jimmy. It only went up $2 per month with the purchase of the brand new Prius IV 2010.

It may matter that I've had no accidents I've since I changed to this insurance company in 1983 and I haven't had a vehicle accident since the late 1970s on my driving record. No speeding tickets since 1991, and I'm an older female (51) homeowner (all factors I believe). Plus I do have various discounts on the total insurance--my house is on it too and there's a fire hydrant right in front and I'm a nonsmoker.

Another factor I found out last night at the Town Council meeting (I'm a Town Councilor)--animal populations can have an impact. In our case, we have higher insurance rates where I live in New Mexico due to the high deer population and the significant increase in deer/auto collisions.

 

Its not going to save you money. Depreciation will kill eat up your gas savings compared to similar cars. The study had flawed figures. A car is not about saving money. It will cost you less than a escalade or a tesla though.

 

Why do you think depreciation is worse for a Prius than other cars?

Tom

 

If the intent is solely a dollar saved matter .... then do not purchase any NEW car. A new car is poor investment.

OTOH, most contributors to PC express satisfaction with the lower emissions; the extended fuel efficiency; the engineering; and the creature comforts incorporated in the Prius. There is another thread on PC that ask, how long do you expect your Prius to last? Most responders indicate 10 or more years, and 150,000 or more miles. Maybe resale value is not that important. The G3 may be the last new car I will purchase .... I plan to keep it for the foreseable future. I have no interest in what Kelly says it is worth. ( BTW, you will find that Kelly is no way representative of the value when you trade your old car).

Insurance seems to vary from area to area. Several responders above cite a higher insurance cost that their old car hat did they expect? I wonder if they expected their Personal Property Tax to remain the same as well?

 

I expected not to pay more than 25% above the rate for a 2006 big-turbo-fed-car that gets to 60 in less than 5 seconds for a 2008 Prius (the Touring edition must be the one all the kids buy and crash, huh?). My mother is constantly like "why do we pay this much for a PRIUS?". I suppose the best advice is to consult your insurance provider to give you a prospective quote before buying a car to avoid such surprises.

 

I went from a 2002 Jeep Liberty to my 2010 Prius and my insurance went down $8 a month.

 

I love my wife, even though she probably won't save me any money in the long run...

 

Send her to work. There is no reason that a wife can't be profitable.

Tom

 

Hi All,

Hmm $13K. Sounds high to me too. The Gas advantage alone probably pays for the additional hybrid equipment up-front costs at this time for most hybrids. In a Prius this is about a $6000 difference at $3/ga (25 vs 50 mpg real metropolitan traffic jam performance), and it pays for the hybrid equipment twice over.

Wear and Tear maintenance on a Prius versus the other cars is significant. Since this is an LA sourced report - that 100K in 5 years. So, that means two front brake jobs, and one rear. Probably an alternator, and starter too. Not needing this maintenance, is all gravy to the Prius owner. Doing 5 K oil changes instead of 3 K changes for other cars with Timing chains is 13 oil changes worth of gravy. Going by Toyota service manual the traditional auto transmission car will need one more transmission oil change than a Prius.

That difference is probably an additional $2K.

SO, the Prius saves about $5K over something of similar feature level, is my guess, if its sold at 100K miles.

 

Compared to my SUV, it will save me money.

 

With the gas prices on the rise, we'll save more money.

Many hybrid models are bundled with premium extra options. When a hybrid "breaks even", it means you get those bonus options for free.

 

I bought my Prius used but not cheap, it was 2 years old at the time and only 13K miles. So I didn't pay the same hybrid premium as new, but certainly paid more than for a non-hybrid. Over the past year we've put 18K on the Prius that otherwise would have been done in our Odyssey. Back of the napkin calculations at $2.75/gal put the difference at about $1500 less spent on gas in one year. But that's just comparing the Prius and Odyssey. If I'd purchased some other efficient non-hybrid car that got, say, 30mpg average, I'd have only a $550 difference.
That would put the payback at quite a few years. But I like knowing how many gallons of gas I didn't burn too. That's what's satisfying. If I was really pinching penny's we probably could have avoided buying a 2nd car altogether. Or selling the Ody and getting that 30mpg used car instead...
Total Cost of Ownership is of course important and nice to know, but it's not everything.

- D

 

The sums that I have done will mean that in the UK I will have a saving of £21k or US$32,691 over 45k miles in three years.....That is a good enough saving for me to give up running one of our two 4x4's....

 

But then can you find a pre-owned 30 MPG non-hybrid with Smart Key with push start button, backup camera and VSC for the price you got your Prius? I can not think of one....

 

Wow, the high petrol prices in the UK really do make a big impact on the savings. That's a large amount.

For me the fuel savings over 45k miles (72.5k km) would be closer to only $2.5k Au (approx 1.5k GB Pound). That's a big difference to your figures, but in my case the Prius replaced an already reasonably efficient conventional car.

 

Hi Uart,

That was my situation too. I had a 2000 Saturn SL2, which is a 1.9 liter compact car. It did about 28 mpg during the summer, 25 in the winter in the metro area traffic here. My car had 70 K miles on it, and probably will go (by the new owner) another 100K miles, with allot of brake maintenance, and a transmission rebuild (metro traffic is death to auto transmissions).

With the US Government tax credit of $3150, and the cost of gas averaging around $3 / gallon, I broke even in less than 5 years over purchasing another such car new. Even though it did not have power anything, had steel wheels, but was an automatic with a/c .

The cheapest thing would have been to run the SL2 into the ground, and then got a Prius, but the tax credit changed my mind, and I decided to splurge. The GM colors are so hard to see in traffic, I wanted to get out the SL2 anyway. I had a few people hit me that never saw me in the SL2. That has not been a problem in the seaside blue Prius at all.

 

That was part of my point. It will cost you less than a more expensive car that uses more gas. The question is what kind of car you want, not what is the cheapest. If you want the cheapest the article is definitely wrong.

I meant than similar non-hybrids. For example during shopping for something fuel efficient I looked at the mazda 3 touring. With incentives I could have bought one for $16K. It had decent wheels and tires (16" uhp) so I would not have needed to upgrade. Interior front seemed better, had a manual which I prefer with more power and a trunk which I prefer. I could also have bought a sun roof at a reasonable price without buying an outdated overpriced nav (part of the hybrid premium). I'm sure the car would have depreciated less per year. At the end of november in texas I needed to pay sticker for a prius, while toyota was hiding information that would have dropped the price. The current incentives and pricing mean I have taken a much bigger depreciation already. Even without this unexpected depreciation, the more expensive car will depreciate faster unless something is really different.

Definitely if you got the tax credit the numbers work out differently. The discounting now may make the hybrid premium shrink compared to when I bought mine. There is also a luxury in having the silence of the engine off at stops and electric motoring to pull silently out of the driveway. I got a red prius, because my grey Lexus seemed to be invisible to some driver every other year. Let's hope your seaside blue and my barcelona red are always visible to the other drivers.

 

I personally see it as an absolute no=brainer

I've owned my '09 for a year and have used it heavily (35k miles) both commuting and all-around use. It replaces an antique 1994 Dodge van and has let me use my '02 Odyssey much less.

I used 550 gallons of gas in that year, getting an average of around 63 mpg......and it wasn't really hard (I still do 65 on Rtes 95 and 495, but use smaller roads more commuting, and I P&G)

The '94 Dodge probably got no more than 16, the Odyssey gets around 22.

If I had bought a Camry, I'd have got 25 mpg, maybe 30 if I had been inspired to drive it as carefully as my Prius.

So the Prius directly saved me $3,000.
(1750 gal at 20 mpg, which is generous, - 550 = 1200 gal)

Controlled for replacing the old car use with a Camry, it still saved me $1,500 or so, and since it cost $24k new (including everything), it seems already to be cost-competitive with comparable size and quality cars.

Plus, its the most fun I ever had with a car, and it costs less to insure (here in MA).
Plus I got a tax break last year (a hundred or 2, I forget exactly)
Plus I feel better, not contributing as much to isostatic uplift in Greenland ......

I really don't know what folks who publish stuff like this are thinking.....