Beware Buyers

pri-pa, i can certainly understand 'the salesman tried to trick me', we've all been subject to that routine.

 

Some of you asked why I purchased a Prius and not a small gas-only car. That's because I wanted a hybrid car and Prius seems to be the best. PPI to me is not a car. PPI is an option or feature that Toyota added to the standard Prius. This was how Toyota presented the PPI. I'm not here to talk down on the Prius, I'm just saying the PPI feature isn't worth the money.

If PPI was that great, why didn't Toyota design it so that you could go 20 to 30 miles on battery? The reason is if they did that, not many people would spend the money to buy the PPI. The cost would be too great for most people. Toyota knew that the only way they could sell PPI is with rebates. Therefore, Toyota had to design the PPI around the rebates and incentives.

 

You are incorrect, because we know that the larger battery proves more regenerative energy and, hence, higher mileage.

I owned a 2010 Prius and then a 2012 PiP. With the Prius, my 80 mile commute mileage was about 47 mpg. With a PiP, it's 68.4 (actual). If my commute was only 50 miles, my mileage would easily be 75 mpg.

So let's do the math:
50 miles/day = 18,250 miles/year
18,250 miles / 47 mpg = 388 gallons/year
18,250 miles / 75 mpg = 243 gallons/year
Gas Saved: 145 gallons
Money Saved: 145 gallons * $4 = $580/year

Since I drive farther, I save over $580/year.

 

Guys, it looks like prius_in_pa has some of his facts wrong but his conclusion is sound. If he refuses to accept tax credits for the PiP, he won't be able save money on a PiP over a regular Prius.

He's making blankets statements I greenness and generalities of worthiness which are opinion. They can be argued forever because it is opinion.

However, I think we can all agree that if some individual refuses free money to buy a PiP, they might not be able recoup the additional costs of the car over a standard Prius for their individual use.

I mean, for my individual use, electricity costs the same as gasoline. I save zero with a plug in. However, my situation allows free charging at work and some stores I frequent. I have no qualms accepting "government handouts" and "quid pro quo" to use HOV lanes.

 

You sound like one of those guys who were all, "Why buy one of these "automobiles," when my horse and buggy can go so much faster, without gasoline? And where are all of the so-called "gasoline stations" they promised? And is Henry Ford going to fix my automobile when it breaks? What if I need to get home from the saloon drunk? I can't do that with one of these new-fangled automobiles. And automobiles won't run on dirt roads. Next thing you know, they'll expect my taxes to pay the gubmint for new roads for their automobiles.

 

We all bought the PiP for combinations of different reasons. Reading these message boards, it seems many of us here considered one thing a crucial factor: buying a car that reduced gasoline use the most for the cheapest car one could afford. A very large portion of us live in California and a few other states that rely little on coal and quite a few of us have solar, so dirty electricity is much less of a concern in these cases anyway.

The PiP is not a car for everyone and favors relatively short commutes or medium commutes with the ability to charge at work. For some other people the Volt or Leaf are better cars for avoiding gasoline.

Sure, it would be great if many of us could go all-out and afford a Tesla, avoiding gasoline altogether, using superchargers to get around the country (when they are fully deployed). If the standard $$$ ROI definition is the primary concern, the Geo metro described would get pretty good mileage and is one of the lowest price cars out there. But for avoiding gasoline for people with our commutes, the PiP most affordably does that (green ROI, perhaps).

The government incentives thing looks sinister on the surface because it looks like an obvious transfer of money from the tax payer base. But large tax transfers happen all the time with just about everything taxed. Some people hardly ever use roads, but pay taxes on them since the fuel tax is not remotely sufficient to pay for roads. Some couples, or singles, never have children but pay many tens-of-thousands in their lives in property taxes that very often are the primary source of revenue of schools.

As a society we often make choices for the general good though they may seem unfair at an individual level, and rarely is there a landslide consensus on how this is best done. There are all legitimate questions about how to best allocate tax revenue, but this kind of redistribution has been going on for ages.

 

Kudos to all of you who are being far nicer to this guy than he deserves.

 

haha I agree...


bottom line, he with his liftback will never achieve higher then 50mpg. If he had bought the PIP, he would have got somewhere around 75mpg each day with one charge on his 50 mile commute, and if he used a slower route or hit traffic may get well over 75mpg.

also, what about all those short trips to the store,groceries,picking up the kids, ect ect...all those trips would go up from 50mpg or LESS(warmup) on his liftback, to 50+ to Infinity /999mpg .

I know my PIP cost me 120 dollars more then the liftback was gonna cost me in total. That is due to the lease price incentive. So for me it was a no brainer to pay another 120 dollars over 3 yrs to get heated seats and alloy wheels alone. But i am at an average of 125mpg as of today and when compared to 50mpg on the liftback i would have got, i have saved the 120 easily already and made money back every day.

BTW i only charge once per day.

PiP owners are by far the most informed people I know, anyone who argues against it with a 50mile commute does not know his facts.

Dan

 

Just for your info the max load on the pip is 825 pounds not 525 pounds!

On my current tank of gas I have 1600 miles at an average of 999MPG so in my case it saves me a little! On the other hand I new that I would never save the extra I spent on the plug-in, but thats ok. I will be close enough after 7 years it won't matter! I love my car great fun!

 

OK, I decided to see if I could come up with a daily savings number. Over 15 months and 17K miles, my car's computer tells me that I have used 871 kWH and by doing so, avoided using 72.8 gallons of gasoline. Using $4.00 as the price of gas, that would be $292, whereas the 871 kWH at $0.12 each cost me a total of $105. I took the difference of $187 divided by 15 months, then further by 30 days and came up with approximately $0.416 per day. Of course, one of the reasons I bought the PiP is because I make several shorts trips over the course of a week, almost exclusively on EV only. When I do make longer trips, some of which involve freeway drives of 180 roundtrip miles, I regularly get around 65-70 mpg, at 70 mph in the HOV lane. So what makes sense for me may not work for someone who makes no short trips to figure in the equation.
Note to Pa Prius- if you had simply made the comment that you didn't feel the PiP made sense for you, since you wouldn't be making short trips, there would have been less argument here. But even if you had done so, it would surely have been pointed out that the PiP excels in the higher mileage returns due to the lithium battery. And, while it was good of you to own up to being wrong on some of your "facts," one which you didn't include was the outlandish statement in your earlier post about the PiP not using regen. Hopefully, you have learned something through the discussion. There are lots of people on this forum with a clear understanding of how the systems in both kinds of Prius work, and they are very good about sharing their knowledge. BTW, elsewhere on these boards, you can find where some buyers bought PiPs for around $26000.00, which is in the neighborhood of a Prius with a similar trim level, although you can't get an exact equipment match.

 

If this guy had my commute here on northern California's 880 corridor, he'd know that a commuter sticker is well worth the price of admission for many of us.

 

You can have your commute, thank you very much!
I'm glad you people can get stickers!

 

i saved about $400. the first year. that would be about a 10 year breakeven based on the price i paid. but the fun of electric driving? priceless.

 

PiP emits less CO2 than a regular Prius, even with higher coal mix in PA electricity.

A regular Prius emits 222 gram/mile. PiP in PA (zip 15413) emits 220 g/mi. With the national average electricity (weighted per kWh generated), PiP is rated to emit 210 g/mi.

When PiP runs out of plugin charge, it's bigger battery can regen brake faster and absorb more energy back into the battery. It can also store more regen electricity so owners have been getting higher MPG than a regular Prius.


I think you are missing the point / design goal of PiP. PiP was designed to provide EV experience for city dwellers and 50 MPG gas engine for longer trips. As you may know, a regular Prius doesn't get 50 MPG for short trips (probably 40-45 MPG). That's where the 11-13 EV miles come in handy. You should count that when comparing the cost to operate.

PiP was designed with the data collected from the first PiP prototype back in 2007. It was Gen2 Prius with NiMh packs added on. The second gen prototype used Gen3 Prius platform with bulky/heavier Lithium pack. The production PiP is actually the 3rd iteration.

To understand the design of PiP, see this post. The answer to why Toyota picked 12.4 miles (20 km) EV range, is in there too (see EV Performance section).

 

Some facts I need to ask:
What did you use for watt-hours per mile and dollars per kwh?

Today my PIP is one year old. I've averaged 188 watt-hours per mile on EV. (I know this is better than most since my commute is on 35-50 mph streets).

I drove 5292 miles in EV over the year. This number is a bit lower than I expect because, I was away from home for 4 weeks straight a few months back, which is unlikely in the future). The total was 995 kwh (from the battery). The vast majority of the chargest were at work...but if I had to pay, including losses at 10 c/kwh that would be $110 for the year. Since most of these miles were short trips (2-6 miles) based on my commute, I estimate it would be about 45-50 mpg...since on my 2010 I get 50-53 overall, including longer trips. Gas at $4/gal would be 111 gal or $444. A savings of $334 for the eleven months of driving.

I also drove 2241 miles on gas and got 59 mpg on those miles...probably some EV boost involved and probably also higher due to mostly no short trips. This is also low for the year since I'll be driving on vacation next month.

Mike

 

One of the clearest illustrations of the word "solipsism" that I have ever seen...

 

whatever i do, most people do. clearly, i'm in the majority.

 

As is true in many instances bigger is not necessarily better. Many of us have driving pattern that are relatively short. This provides us with the option of purchasing a PHEV wth a short EV range, with a smaller cheaper battery.

Review the Fuelly data on the Cmax Energi and the Prius Plugin. Despite having a bigger battery and higher EV range the Cmax lags in terms of fuel economy.

 

That's called anecdotal reasoning. Step back and look at the big picture.

There is currently no way to justify any plug-in vehicle. For that matter, even the "worth" of a hybrid continues to be challenged. Sadly, part of that comes from giving no value to the reduction of emissions and non-renewable resources in those "worth" analysis calculations. Fortunately, purchase priorities are changing for some.

Toyota took the balance of battery & cargo sizes was taken quite seriously. As with the cost of gas, battery cost will swing in favor of that configuration. Without any incentives, the approach will be profitable and reach the masses. That's a very, very important aspect typically dismissed by those only looking at the immediate present.

The current effort is to establish the existing rollout markets and to better spread the word about real-world experiences. Introducing more new owners at dealers who are also new would be counter-productive. Expansion prior to finishing up with the first batch of owners would spread resources too thin, especially when dealing with an ever-changing mindset about plugging in from the political arena.