It’s interesting to see that Toyota posted a video comparing the 2025 Prius Plug-in Hybrid to the 2025 Tesla Model 3. They are trying to define and distinguish themselves from what they see as competition. At least they’re trying to make customers believe they’re comparable. It’s a bold move.
I think it may be a reasonable assumption based on the fact that we are in the nascent stages of a major breakthrough in battery capacities. But Tesla is also at the forefront of adopting solid state batteries.
Or at least that's what Toyota's PR team, which has zero technical expertise wants you to think... Based on current materials and factory development this so called breakthrough is going to be rolling off the assembly line in 2030. So in some ways its worth comparing to Tesla because both manufactures are always many, many years behind what they promise to deliver.
battery nonsense. i don't believe there are many people trying to decide between phev and bev. you're generally firmly in one camp or the other. more people are switching from phev to bev than vice versa. toyota is constantly putting out a barage of propaganda against bev's. it's been going on for years.
For me the deciding factor was car insurance. I was shocked when we sold our old Prius and our insurance rates jumped. No claims, no tickets etc last 15 years. Went from $800/yr to $1,700/yr for full coverage w/$500 deductible on the 2024 Prius Prime XSE Was quoted $4,200/yr for the same coverage but w/$2000 deductible for the 2024 Tesla Model 3 - insurance said they wouldn't give a lower deductible due to the higher incident rate and higher repair costs for Teslas. The insurance alone would make a gasoline only car the same price to operate every year as a Tesla. Currently am getting 4000-5000km range per tank of gas on the prius due to the plug in option - effectively we are getting the same benefits of going electric but without any range anxiety or need to waste my life at expensive fast charge stations which end up costing more per km than the price of gas.
I always look at 5 year TCO (total cost of ownership). https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparisons/ This site won't let me link my car comparison parameters, which were 2025 base models Tesla 3, Prius PHEV, Prius SE, bZ4X I can't seem to find TCO for the Prius PHEV; probably because the results vary too much if you only do less that 40 miles a day on a full charge or if you don't charge and rely on the gas engine ONLY will also mess with their results. I've dove-tailed the result and compared the closest models to the Tesla and the Toyota has a clear economical advantage over the 5 year comparison. Do you still need to program, limit, the Tesla battery charge percentages to keep from prematurely frying the pack? That's going to limit overall range on a charge, therefore distance traveled between charges. That video was Toyota centric, here's a kinda even-handed comparison though the data is dated, especially the insurance cost; you'll have to ignore all the government incentive talk and it doesn't compare a PHEV, just a plain Prius XLE and a cautionary tale..... Just my 2 cents.....
