PIP - Leaf - Or Volt ??? - Help Me Decide

It depends.

You would generate equivalent CO2 driving a LEAF at 34 kWh per 100 miles (EPA) as you would driving a Prius at 50 mpg with 24.5 pounds CO2 per gallon (GREET) if your local electricity was about 2/3 coal and 1/3 nuclear plus hydro.

You would do even better in a Tesla Roadster or an i-MiEV. The i-MiEV is rated 30 kWh per 100 miles combined city/highway and 27 kWh city. At those efficiencies, you would be doing better on regular grid power than a Prius in most of the country except for the upper Midwest (with various local exceptions). Even in bad areas, you can sometimes pay extra for "green power" which feeds money towards expanding low-carbon generators.

 

Yes - but OP already says it is for "fun". Prius (&PIP I guess) for all the efficiency is a boring vehicle - atleast compared to Leaf or Volt. Besides, it is so much more fun to drive without using gas. Try it - you will like it too.

 

Ofcourse also make sure that
- None of the Oil comes from tar sands
- None of the Oil comes from deep ocean floor
- None of the Oil comes from people who fund terrorists
- None of the Gas burnt causes smog
etc
etc

Using today's CO2 emission as the sole criteria is very short-sighted. What we need to do is to
- Reduce transportation related emissions at the pipe
- Reduce Electricity generation related emissions at the chimney

It will take decades to switch over to etter electricity sources & zero emission cars. One can't wait for the other.

 

Duh! I'd like to have homes in a variety of places too. But that's not going to happen. Want comes after need is fulfilled. And in many people's cases, there's barely enough to afford the need.

That's what makes PIP such a great choice. You can have your cake and eat it too, just not all the time.
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I am buying my PiP because I think it WILL be lots of fun! I am very excited about how the PiP will let me drive without using gas on short trips around town yet still allow me to drive all the way from Minneapolis to the north shore of Lake Superior (and still get great gas mileage and low emmissions).

I also travel 140+ miles (each way) to visit my parents every other month, too. For me, the PiP is the perfect EV/Gas 'hybrid'. I will get great gas mileage when I need to go on long trips (and they are an option with the PiP) yet I can still look to do a decent amout of driving from home without any gas. I am going to have lots of fun, I know!

 

Let me get this straight you like choice as long as PIP is the only plug in choice? Lots of hipsters down here would love to drink pbr and go ice fishing in Minnesota, but their fixies just don't ride well in the snow. How about allowing for gwmort and evnow having their choice as well as you? Driving a car is a want not a need, I know many people that don't own cars. A prius phv is a luxury item, just not as big of a luxury as a porsche.

It does sound like a good choice for you.

 

PIP is the only one which currently strikes that balance of priorities for much of middle-market. Some will obviously find the other choices suited for their needs, but you know darn well the goals I've stated. They've been posted relentlessly. Any vehicle achieving that criteria for mainstream sales will do the trick.
.

 

I don't think the phv is going to be very mainstream, but I am absolutely fine with you using your own criteria. What I object to is your endless dribble about how car B is awful, only car A is good. The more plug in choices the better for me. I'd like them to get market acceptance.

 

Since I also have been saying the more choices the better, what "only" are you talking about? Remember, I pushed for a second model of Volt all along. How could a second one that's configured to actually meet GM's own affordable goal not be good?
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The PIP doesn't fulfill a need. It fulfills a want. It's diet cola to go with the cake.

 

It depends on how one looks at car B. If one expects to put four 6 ft. occpupants (46FO) in car B, IMO, it is pretty much awful. In car A, 46FO fit surprisingly well. But, if one is not concerned about fitting 46FO, wants better pickup, handling, more electric drive, wants to spend x% more, doesn't 'look like a hybrid' and is ok with a middling 37 MPG CS mode, car B is appealing.

 

From emissions POV, in a country with a green grid (like Portugal is becoming), PIP is able to avoid a lot of GHG emissions .
The cake is also light!

 

Affordable is not their only challenge. Seems to me many 'green car buyers' seek practicality. How can one beat the practicality of the Prius chassis? Prius balance of practicality, efficiency, etc is amazing.

I think it's just a matter of time until Toyota brings competitors to their knees to copy Prius. But, it might be in the form of Prius v. I think C-Max will be more like v than Prius.

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I'm off topic. OP Take your time, enjoy the shopping!

 

Yo.........

GO WITH THE PRIUS ! ...... When I picked up my New Prius at the Union Station, in LA, there were mega bright yellow prius taxi's at the Amtrak Station.

I asked my sales-kid about all the prius's ?

He said the Prius cabs buy parts from their Prius Shop and that a lot of the YELLOW CAB PRIUS'S HAVE OVER 300,000 MILES ON THEM !

How's that for an awesome Toyota Prius testimonial ?
Jim

 

What? There's a clear need to reduce dependency on oil and reduce both smog & carbon emissions. PIP very effectively does that. It's a high-volume solution for mainstream consumers.
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My wager - 2 years from now, PiP will be outselling Leaf and Volt combined. 25k PiPs / year in US would be nice.

 

get a Leaf!! but then again, you already knew i would say that.

seriously;

1) determine your driving needs. if you can say you never have a regular trip (like a work commute or something done on a regular schedule) greater than 70 miles...no, make it 65 miles roundtrip, get a Leaf.

ok, i am done. when i got my Leaf i already knew it would work. we had 2 Priuses and a Zenn an NEV which was slow and had range of 20 miles but i drove it EVERY day as my commuter. the 2nd Prius sat. how many people do you know who has a 2010 Prius and put 5800 miles on it the first year of ownership? take out 3 400 mile trips and it really goes down.

but i have tracked every car trip in my family since Thanksgiving weekend of 2003 when i put down my $100 deposit to order my first Prius. it did not take me long to realize i drove a lot less than i thought i did. but if that did not convince you;

keep in mind; electricity will NEVER go away. excited electrons are here to stay. they can not be used up.

gasoline vehicles would not work today without the proper infrastructure and why should EVs be any different? is it a question of "gas is better, we need to keep it?" i sure hope not!

the other thing is are EVs ready? well, they will never be ready if we dont start. you are helping others make the decision. for every Leaf on the road, 100 people will take notice, 15 will seriously consider it and 1-3 will buy one.

but as more EVs get on the road, this will build the infrastructure to the point that pretty soon, the 100 mile range will be a non-issue. when charging stations become as prevalent as gas stations, how far can you drive then?

oh, wait!! there is that 7 hour recharge time... but we are not going to grandma's house now are we. we are going to lunch 10 miles away. plug in half an hour, get back 5 miles. goto mall 10 miles away. plug in an hour get back 8 miles. swing by to get haircut another 4 miles away, plug in get another 5 miles back. stop at grocery store, get another 6 miles back. next thing you know, you have driven 60 miles on a 100 mile range car, but still have 70 miles left and the weird thing about it... you are now at home and have nothing left to do...

or, we could continue to gas up our cars for those trips we do when 75% of them are less than 15 miles round trip (btw, in winter, the car does not even get is reduced winter mpgs until after 5-7 miles, so when you start thinking why is my Prius only getting 38 mpg...refer to this)

and; we can continue to pump 400 billion into the economies of various foreign countries... oh wait!! make that 550 billion (we dont have 400 billion so we had to borrow that money which means paying intersest!!) instead of building up the electrical grid of the US by paying American Workers who will spend their paychecks at American businesses who will pay taxes that will be distributed back to the infrastructure to pay American workers to maintain the grid who will take their paychecks (now using dollars that have been circulated thru the system dozens of times ) to by goods from American...

after all that; what it boils down to is how much effort are you willing to put into making EV work. we can cherry pick scenarios for and against all day long, but it becomes a personal decision to help change the inevitable or wait for someone else to do it.

 

oh... did not want to put this in the previous post because i did not want to get it buried.

i leased my Leaf to get the max tax credit. i put $10,000 down instead of the required $2,000 to lower my payments to $162 (mine are lower due to sales tax waiver in WA) now, there is a risk to this since you would not be protected in case of an accident. you might want to discuss with insurance company on the logistics of this.

now, you can (in WA is $300) convert lease to purchase at any time and a lot of people who dont have the tax liability are doing this to lower the cost of the car.

as far as the down payment... was not tough especially after i sold my 2006 Prius for 13 grand

 

Ten years ago, the Prius was very non-mainstream, but here in Northern California, they're one of the most common cars on the road. If the plug-in feature gave 15 electric miles on a 90 minute charge and added $1,500 to the price of a car, I'd hazard a guess that over 50% of new car buyers would choose that feature if it were available on the car of their choice. Maybe in ten years, that will indeed be the case.

 

I test drove a Leaf in the summer. AC was blasting with a total of 4 adults inside, it drove pretty well. I was expecting more torque but under those conditions I guess I should expect to feel less torque.

I found it quite boring with a single engine as I was used to hybrid engines blending. You push the accelerator and the range went down. Pushed the brake and it gained some back. That's about it.

After that test drive, I realized how much fun I have with the Prius with two engines and how they interact with one another. PiP would take it to the next level by giving more control with the HV/EV button. You decide when to use the bigger battery or the gas engine or let the computer blend both. That's like a manual transmission type of fun because you will feel connected to the car with the control from your foot and hands that dictates how two engines would interacts.