Article on Fox about the plug-in Prius

that is shockingingly optimistic from fox and a little gm bashing to go with it? great article. i would definately consider one against the leaf, volt and whatever else is out there when the time comes. will it pay for itself? no, but that's not my thang, i just want to drive electric, hopefully pollute less and get off foreign oil.

 

well driving the prius is not always about breaking even! its for people also doing better for you health,
looking at aftermarket plugin packs the 5000 add to the cost is not that high.

 

Is it true that it qualifies for a tax credit? I've heard that you get a ~$2900 credit. That would make the math a little different. You could probably make up $2100 over the course of many years, assuming cheap electricity and high gas prices.

 

if you look at the cost of volt, leaf, hymotion etc., heck even the enginer with all it's faults, a factory built plug in for 28K doesn't sound bad. how many will they sell? who knows. i'm not sure it's the direction they would have gone without public and competitive pressure anyway. the question is, what do you get for 28K? II,III,IV,V? and of course, a tax crsdit would mean a lot.

 

I went ahead and did some math.

Assume gas is $4/gallon and electricity is free (we'll deal with its cost later).

Assume it's driven once per day for 13 miles all electric:
4745 miles per year = 95 gallons = $380 saved per year

Alternatively, from an improved mileage standpoint, assume 15,000 miles/year:
50 MPG = 300 gallons per year
65 MPG = 230 gallons (70 gallons/$280 saved per year)
70 MPG = 214 gallons (86 gallons/$344 saved per year)
75 MPG = 200 gallons (100 gallons/$400 saved per year)
85 MPG* = 176 gallons (124 gallons/$496 saved per year)

*Consumer reports actual number for 20-30 mile commutes, which is about right for me

Now subtract from these savings the cost of charging the vehicle. It's hard to get an exact number here, but it looks like CR is saying ~3.37 kwh to charge, so at 11 cents national average for electricity, assuming one charge per day, that's 37 cents per day, or $135 per year. That means that the 20-30 mile commuters are saving $360/year at $4/gallon, or $237/year at $3/gallon. If the extra cost is $5k, that will take ~14 years of driving at $4/gallon to make sense. If it's more like $2k, then it's just under 6 years @ $4/gallon. At $3/gallon, it's 21 years and 9 years, respectively.

Obviously, if you can charge it twice in one day (quite possible given the short charge time), you'll do a whole lot better in savings. And if you get charged more than the national average for electricity, the savings start to evaporate.

 

nice work there. that's why you need other reasons to buy. same could be said of the prius to a lesser extent. and has been said, at many times in many ways.

 

They are predicting it pretty much the same as a II. It will have a prewarm/cool climate control new charger/inverter plug, and a $2900 tax credit. No one really knows the price, and if they give you more content the price will go up. Edmunds predicted $4K more, and I doubt any of these guys know. Toyota is only planning on 20K phv prii the first year, so if demand is there these will be going at sticker versus discounted non-phv.

A little math is always a dangerous thing ;-) Let's face it buying a prius is about saving gas, and the phv will save more than the standard prius. If we use the heater or AC I would expect it to get less than 13miles, but lets be generous and round up and say 100 gallons. Many will want them just to fill up less. If you start talking about the money though the prius it self doesn't really give you pay back. Chip in the cost of electricity and that payback looks doubtful even compared to a prius. Especially since you need to realize better phev will be out in the future when you try to sell the car.

 

Well, the PHV Prius prototype had the Navigation with Bluetooth so it is comparably equipped to the $27k Prius III.

$28k PHV Prius with $2,917 tax credit would be a steal in my opinion (if it is equipped like the prototype).

 

I can't see pre-warming working well unless you're plugging into 220V. Pre-cool shouldn't be a problem though.

If you're using the heater, it'd certainly be less. A/C not so bad. Didn't some people report that use of the heater makes it more likely for it to run the engine anyway?

The only way it'll pay back is if you're doing multiple charges per day and that's unrealistic. But you're right, the question is simply do you save enough to make it affordable. Plenty of people will simply love the less restricted EV and lay down the extra money for it.

 

Prius PHV.

It's either PHEV Prius (generic) or Prius PHV (specific).

 

It is closer to 4x. 5.2 kWh vs. 1.31 kWh. However, the usable energy is 7x (3.6kWh vs. 0.5 kWh).

As mentioned in the previous post, it should not be compared with the $23k Prius II. It is based on the Prius III that starts at $25k.

 

Yes, the math allows fudging when you consider personal driving habits, the city you live in, local costs for electricity and gas, etc, so it can be dangerous. I'd say someone like yourself might be able to make the most sense out of it, given Austin's apparent enthusiasm for electric vehicles. But it's pretty clear that people might have to take a long view if they want a plug in Prius to make financial sense if there's thousands in markup involved. And it may not be able to make sense over any period of time if electricity is expensive.

From a market perspective, I suspect that this will take sales away from the Volt.

 

I'll have to break the habit. Prius PHV it is.

 

I'm happy for Toyota, but frankly this should have happened 4 or 5 years ago. My next new car will be an EV, not a hybrid. And that most likely means a brand change to Ford.

 

Don't forget the iQ based EV.

Toyota iQ-Based EV Nears Production: 2011 Geneva Auto Show

 

Another factor in cost comparisons: PHV will let me be EV on my short (low-mpg) commute and other short trips. Mpg on those miles is 30-40, I'd guess. So the EV miles there pay back much better than using my 50 mpg lifetime average which is achieved with longer drives that will still use gas.

 

The rule is that when calculating for gas substitution you are removing miles from the end of the journey, as it were. So you first deduct any "warm" miles and then "cold" miles. In your case you're deducting a lot of "cold" miles. In my case (20.6 miles to work) I'd be deducting almost all warm miles.

When calculating using a "cold" average you also need to calculate your "warm" average.
E.g T = total miles, C = cold miles (all short trips, plus some additional warm-up miles for longer trips). Let "cold" average F = 35mpg and lifetime average be 50mpg.
Then warm average Q = (T-C)/(T/50 - C/35) mpg.
If C = T/5 (that is your commutes and other cold miles are 20% of your travel) then,
T - C = T - T/5 = 4(T/5) and
T/50 - C/35 = T/5x10 - T/5x35 = (1/10 - 1/35)(T/5)
Q = 4(T/5)/((1/10 - 1/35)(T/5))
= 4/(1/10 - 1/35)
= 4/(7/70 - 2/70)
= 4x70/(7-2)
= 280/5
= 56mpg

Not as significant an offset but it adds a bit more balance.

You also need to estimate how long it takes to warm up so that for any trips between AER and AER + "warm-up" miles you can better estimate the displaced gas.

Also, I believe that the test models started warming up the engine a bit before the EV range is used up. This could mean you're actually getting something like 50mpg when close to the AER. (I find that when re-gen decelerating from 30 to 25 near the start of my commute the instant mpg shows about 50mpg in cold weather, but I haven't checked exactly what it's doing on ScanGauge.)