Are hybrid owners thrifty in general?

Agreed.

I remember seeing only one Gen 1. I think I saw the front of a Prime behind my car once. It was close enough it may have been a local dealer demo. I am starting to see other Gen 4s from time to time.

There is a small pharmacy here that uses a Gen 2 Prius & a Gen 3 Prius for deliveries. I occasionally see them parked beside each other in their parking lot.

 

I see a 4th gen every month or three around here. Never seen a Prime. Are they just going for sale?

Lots of second and third gen, I'd say a slight edge to 3rd gen. Pretty sure the majority of cabs are Prius, again about 50/50 2nd/3rd gen, with slight edge to 3rd gen.

Just a general survey of what's on the roads: maybe 40% CUV, 30% SUV/truck/minivan and 30% sedan/hatchbacks.

 

admittedly, now that we're 'comfortable', i'm not as frugal as i used to be. i bought the first prius for the tech, the electric propulsion, and the low pollution, as well as reduced fossil fuel usage. not for financial savings. at msrp, that was never going to happen.

 

I've seen two gen 1, dozens of gen 2 and 3s, and even a white Prime all in one day! Traveled two hours from nashville to Chattanooga TN today. Prii are everywhere here in Tennessee

 

must be a lot of thrifty people in those area's.

 

Out here all the Prii are too popular I don’t bother to count (must pass a dozen or so Primes to and from work and a coworker has one while the neighbor 3 doors down also has one).

What I count is the number of Model 3s, Model X and Mirai that are seen in the wild.

I avoid counting the Honda Clarity for obvious reasons .

 

Thrifty-ish. I love filling up the tank only every 3 weeks or so. Granted the new car cost me more than some other choices, but I did wait for the autumn dealer deals, plus good interest rates. I go to the movies, though, and like good restaurants, so I'll likely get fired from the "Thrifty Club"

 

Saw a nice red prime after typing my earlier post! It looked good!

 

A silver Gen1 is seen in the customer's parking lot at work every couple of days, so I know they're not only thrifty when buying groceries, they're thrifty enough to not yet upgrade their ride. I'd bet I could get a perfect 7 in Prius Bingo at work if I carried my camera all the time while out doing cart runs.

 

If I get a gen4 in there as well, does that count for 8 points?

 

I'm of the opinion that Prius's are reliable enough that I'll let others take the depreciation hit and buy them used. Plus..I like to work on them. It is a good hobby when you are in a field like mine ( software 'engineering'..more like hacking sometimes with the crap I work on ). It keeps me somewhat sane!

I guess that does make me thrifty!

 

Me...Thrifty as it applies to TCO. Yes...the Prius does cost more than most comparably sized and equipped ICE cars. Yes...it gets better mpg than most. No...that difference doesn't wash. The biggest benefit though has been cost reliability. I have had to fix almost nothing and will state for the record that both our PRII and RAV4 HV are the most reliable cars I've ever owned. That's where the real savings comes from. YMMV

 

I am not thrifty, but I am also not wasteful. I live well within my financial means, and am willing to work hard to get what I want.

 

Oddly enough, at the one Aldi near us that has its own car park, I notice the cars are generally a lot more expensive than at the car parks for Coles and Woolworths (the two dominant, and much more expensive, supermarket chains). People here who shop at Aldi seem to save money on food and spend it on a Merc, BMW, Audi or Volvo.

I'm no longer a Prius driver, but I think once you've been a Prius driver you're always one at heart. And I am thrifty to the point of stinginess, as is my whole family.

I go to Aldi for the stuff I can't get elsewhere. We go to a market in Western Sydney for misshapen fruit and vegetables. There's also a guy there called Out Of Date Food Guy: he sells out-of-date food and "frustrated stock" - stuff that's been sent to Australia by accident. I buy a lot of stuff from him. At Aldi (and the other supermarkets), I get meat that's reduced because it's close to its sell-by date.

This isn't out of any desperate need: it's sport, and family tradition. My parents and two other couples have regular dinner-party competitions: you have to prepare a really good three-course meal for as little money as possible using the reduced out-of-date stuff from the supermarket. Mum and Dad's friends Tony and Sylvia currently hold the record at £1.43 per head.

Dad regularly e-mails copies of supermarket receipts to show me how much money he's saved: last year for his birthday I got him a mug with the most impressive of those receipts (total cost: £4.55; savings £25.43) printed on it. It's his favourite mug now.

Our biggest family scandal ever (apart from getting thrown out of Ireland for stealing sheep... oh, and the highwayman thing, but they were both ages ago) was when my Uncle Matt was in the supermarket in Glasgow and had done really well on reduced meat that was going out of date. He'd almost filled his trolley, and then someone else ran off with it! If we ever find her....

 

There are a few 1s round here, lots of 2s and 3s, quite a lot of Vs (taxis mostly), and quite a lot of Cs. 4s are rare, but there are a few: I saw a couple this morning on the school run.

But we would be hamstrung in the competition because PiPs and Primes have never been sold here.

And when I'm in Beijing I'd have no chance. There are almost no Priuses of any sort. I'd have to play EV Bingo instead.

 

It's not just the US: it's the same in Britain and Australia. People who, frankly, need the cheap stuff a lot more than I do wouldn't touch it: they're convinced that it's no good once it's even approaching the "best used by" or "best before" dates.

The Diet Coke I'm drinking as I write this (with "17 Oct 17" written on the bottom of the can, and for which I paid A$8 for a pack of 30, rather than the A$32 I'd have paid in a supermarket) is perfectly fine. Well, as perfectly fine as Diet Coke gets.

On medicines.... Yes. My mum was a pharmacist, and the waste always annoyed her immensely. There are some perishable medicines for which the dates are important, of course. And there are plenty of others for which the dates mean nothing.