confused prius vs volt

There you have it. Just tell them that your Leaf is diesel powered, and it has ,ahhhh, a BIG block heater. That's it, a block heater. The battery is block shaped, after all, and charging it produces heat.

Tom

 

Your household has Traverse already and it sounds like you are looking for a commuter car. If saving money is the highest priority, you can't go wrong with Prius c with ultra low maintenance.

If you want to save even more gas and want to plug it in, both Prius PHV or Volt are good choices. With the second baby, the midsize Prius PHV may be a better choice because you can put a rear facing infant seat in the rear middle seat and there is more leg room in the back. You also have more cargo volume.

If Traverse is reserved for family trips then Volt will put more electric miles in your commute. Electricity in your area is cleaner than national average.

 

You also missed the point I stated of the maturity state of charging stations available. While he is a fireman, does the station necessarily have conveniently placed outlets for even the 120v, let alone a 240v charging point. If not, he may have to run an extension from the station to where his car is parked, which may or may not be a good idea given his work place.

It is also partly the reason I say it may not benefit him right away given the LACK of maturity of electric infrastructure in general. After all, even from my standpoint, I have no place to charge my car where I work because there is no outlets nearby at all to hook into if I went with the Leaf and I have a 10 mile commute. That's well below even the worst case scenario of a fully charged, low temperature Leaf capacity. While the Leaf can at least give about 83 miles on a full charge, the charging infrastructure is not quite to my liking just yet, especially if you want to go further.

 

The 73 mile range is the EPA estimate and already takes some use of the heater into account. It also takes hot weather into account but again it's not a hot state, with mid-80s being the peak average high.

So, a 52 mile trip wouldn't need a 100% fill year round. And, given a 24 hour shift he's not doing the trip every working day, so he wouldn't actually be using 100% charge much.

If you're going to use the EPA numbers, than it's actually 2/3 of the distance. (70/104).

Before I'd considered a Volt in that situation I'd look to see whether the LEAF would do the job.

 

I would put a vote in for the Prius. You could do more of the family trips in the Prius more comfortably than the Volt, I think. As for a straight commuter car for just one person, either one would work just fine for your needs. Why not keep the current car and get a slightly used Prius to supplement that?

 

If you hold onto your cars for a long time then I would not consider a Leaf at all. Nissan themselves say it typically loses 20% capacity in 5 years (in the manual). That leaves you with a 58 mile range after 5 years. Doesn't seem the vehicle for you.

A volt is pretty expensive compared to a used prius so unless you have some personal feelings (want to support an american corporation, want to use electricity for a lot of the travel etc), then I think a regular prius would win.

Is your commute stop and go traffic? If you drive 55 and go at a consistent speed then there are a lot of high mileage conventional vehicles now as well. The hybrid doesn't do much for you if it isn't stop and go traffic (Most drivers do spend their time in stop and go traffic).

 

He's doing mainly highway miles and is used to some power, that makes the prius liftback a better choice for that commute than the c. Higher mpg and power.

Holding a long time, may lead to prius also. Its unknown how well the volt will age, but.... Over 8 years if you use 2/3 less gas that may be worth something.

 

You seem sold on the leaf. My mom gets upset if there is less than 1/4 tank of gas. Most of us want a little room for emergencies, and over the years that leaf battery may go down. 73 in the cold means that you you like driving your gas car on fumes. What if you want to stop somewhere on the way home from work?

 

If you drive 55 mph in a Prius (neutral wind) at a consistent speed, you can get between 60 - 65 mpg fairly easily. If you hit some slow and go traffic, it will help even more!

Most conventional cars that get good highway MPG's (40 mpg) aren't as big as a Prius. The hybrid pollutes less out the tailpipe.

 

He said that those with diesel vehicles are permitted to plug in. So the plugs are available. And with 24-hour shifts he does not need L2 charging. 120-volt will work fine. There are Leaf owners who just use 120 because of the high cost of EVSEs.

So, my recommendation to the OP:

I believe that your commute is too long for a plug-in Prius (PiP) to have an advantage over a regular Prius. I've never seen the Prius C, but I gather it's a commuter/city car with better mpg than the regular Prius, and with your commute, probably better than the PiP as well.

With the Volt, you'd still burn gas for about 1/3 of your commute. You could use the car for longer trips, but it's small compared to Prius or Leaf, and I don't trust GM reliability. (I think GM is Iago.)

But the Leaf, IMO, would be perfect for you. Your commute is half its ideal range, or 2/3 its EPA range, and with 24 hours to recharge, you'd have no problem. If there is a Nissan dealer between you and the fire station you'd be set in case of an emergency, especially if you buy from that dealership.

And since you already have another car that can be used when longer drives or family trips are necessary, this car need not have long-range capability.

If you had not expressed the preference for a new car, I'd have said that the most economical transportation was a used Civic or Corolla or Prius. But since you want a new car, my recommendation, without any doubt, is the Leaf. (Unless you can afford a Tesla Roadster. )

Truth disclaimer: I am an anti-gasoline fanatic. I think that where feasible, electric is always better. And FWIW, I've driven both the Volt and the Leaf, but not the PiP.

 

I'd suggest a new 12 Prius model 2, about 23k, 50 mpg and you can use it for more than just your commute, the kids will fit and you may find you will leave the Traverse at home a lot, especially when and if we hit $5 gas. Drive in for 200k while you are saving for a Volt!

 

...if you look at Consumer Reports you will see Prius sits atop the Family category, meaning I think it is quite good for a family or grandkid sceanio. We had 2 grandkids in child seats and a Mom back there the other day in rear seat.

 

I have experience with two Prius cars (a 2005 base model, which I sold about a year ago with around 90,000 miles) and my new Prius Plug-in. I also drove a Chevy Volt for about a week. I used it for a combination of city commuting and highway trips. The Prius vehicles are very different from the Volt, and which one is best for you depends upon what kind of driving you do.

The Volt got around 33 all-electric miles out of a full charge. However, after that it relied on gas. As I recall it 'only' got around 35MPG at that point, using premium gas.

By comparison, the new, standard Prius gets 50MPG.

It sounds like for your kind of driving, the Volt might be a better choice.

By the way, do not worry about that fire scare. From what I heard, that was due to the NHTSA leaving the battery connected and cooking for three weeks after they crash tested the car. Despite the car not being to blame, I heard that GM did some safety modifications to be on the safe side.

 

my real volt usage, on a 70+ mile trip.

used less than 1 gallon of gas, (aprox 40mpg) and used the battery for 35+ miles (only cost 50cents to charge)

 

That's GREAT fuel economy. It sounds like the Volt would be ideal for the firefighter.

I wonder what the combined gas and electric mileage will be for the Prius Plug-in on longer trips, which is where it would probably start to get better combined electric and gas fuel economy than the Volt, and on regular gas versus premium. Time will tell.

As for the Leaf, Coda, Tesla, etc., until they can get much longer range and much quicker recharges, I will not be fan of all-electric cars because they will leave you stranded if and when the battery gets depleted. Hybrids can run as long as there are gas stations around.

 

...your Traverse MPG looks just like my minivan, which I tend to use sparingly unless I need to haul stuff. I can rely on the Prius even for vacations and Xmas I put a roof box up there and I can pretty much get a minivan worth of stuff in there. You have to be the judge if you want 2 full service cars that can do it mostly all in a pinch, or have one smaller car for commute.

 

Nice start timtim.. Once you get more practice with your Volt you can get better milage. Here is my screen from yesterday



As I said in my earlier post.. if careful the firefighter could easily do much better than EPA an come close to minimal. Gas.

The 128mpg yesterday was my worst milage many in months.

The TCO calculator I posted can help the OP decide, but at 8 years the payoff may work out. THe bigger question is really the rest of the family travel and if the space works.

 

I doubt, at this time, you are going to see any 'quicker' recharging rates with our current battery technologies. There is news about better capacity with Li-Ion batteries, but we are about at least 2 years from seeing it applied to the consumer market.

Daniel - I just saw the mention of the outlets for the diesel trucks, so that may be a plus. I still feel, though, the Electric Charging infrastructure is still a bit immature. But mayhaps the leaf will work for him, but now hearing the battery degredation may also hamper his range after a while... I think I would probably stick with a Gas/NG-Electric Hybrid, especially for long term keeping, unless it is guaranteed that there will be a modular battery system. While he will have to pay for the replacement battery, I would think replacing the battery on EVs would almost be close to taking out half the engine (Effort wise, not literally) out of the car for long term ownership, especially if it will lose half its range in a period of 4 to 5 years, and that is trying not to deplete the battery.

 

You should see the 90 amp home charger Tesla was showing with the model S betas last summer.