Why would you choose a Prius over a Chevy Volt?

$0.90 per day at 35 miles - $4.91 for the one trip.

 

It could be noted that in BC, electricity costs the equivalent of $0.07 / kWh and gasoline is currently the equivalent of $4.50 / gallon

 

Going back to the OPs original question...
Why would you choose a Prius over a Chevy Volt?
My family has owned a total of 4 GM products over the last 25 years. Every one of them was a piece of crap!!! Granted they were all purchased used, but every one spent as much time in the shop as on the road and left people stranded at the side of the road on more than one occasion. The local dealer which I purchased a Chevy pickup truck from was one of the worst dealers I have ever seen and reneged on several things I was supposed to get fixed on the truck after I bought it. It took 5 trips to the dealer and finally a major threat of lawsuit on my part to get the spare tire I was promised! So for me I won't ever even consider another vehicle from GM... Very bad experiences with GM and their dealers.

My family has also owned 4 Toyota products. Total miles would be about 700,000 miles. Two of them are now 15 years old or more. I have personally owned a Yaris and the Pip. Number of times any of them have ever had anything fail? ZERO! Only thing ever done was regular service. I have a couple friends who have also owned Toyotas. Number of non-warranty repairs? Zero! One guy finally got rid of his original 4-runner (bought used, BTW) at the age of 28 years and after close to 400,000 miles. Other than changing the oil, the fan belt, and a few sets of tires, nothing ever went wrong with the vehicle. He also spent thousands of hours at fire calls with the emergency lights on and the engine just off idle. He plowed snow out of his driveway with it. Reason he finally bought another 4-runner? He was afraid the body was going to fall off the old one as it was rattling pretty bad (and you could see the road under the vehicle while sitting in the drivers seat...). As far as I'm concerned the Local Toyota Dealer has treated me fairly and politely at all times.

That and the fact that my Pip doubles as a pickup for me and has hauled concrete blocks, bags of cow manure, topsoil, and 2x4x8 lumber and a whole lot of other stuff I could never get into a Volt and done it cheaper as well. The Pip, BTW, after all rebates, trade ins, and the $4,000 cash back from Toyota for financing at 0% with them cost me all of $19,000. That is a whole lot less than a new pick up truck!!! I have averaged 74mpg over the 24,000 miles I have put on the Pip so far.

YMMV!

 

Difference is larger with greater disparity between gas/electric. Still not a massive difference for the particular commute.

 

Fwiw, GM reliability ratings have steadily improved over the years. We could talk about their 1990s cars, but we could also talk about Toyota's unreliable cars from the 1940s and pretend like that is also valid.

 

can you walk us through the $19k price ? You didn't really subtract your trade-in did you ?
I mean someone trading in their Tesla would get paid to drive the PiP !

I do agree the GM (un)reliability gave me pause but several years worth of good results and no recalls on the Volt sold me.
I really liked my PiP so I'm not bashing - I've defended it from some stupid claims on the Volt site, however it did occur to me that there are a number of drivers on here who switched from PiP to Volt and are pleased.
I've yet to hear of anyone who's made or considering a switch from Volt to PiP. Just sayin !

 

I think you missed the point. Each car has its advantages and disadvantages, but the Prius has the least amount of overall disadvantages.

 

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Without the trade-ins, of course, would have been $27,300.... I was just using what I actually paid for the car as both vehicles I traded were completely paid for... Probably not how it should be figured...

This is off the top of my head.... The car sitting on the lot listed for $33, 300. I traded in both my junk Dodge Dakota ($800) (would have gotten $350 from the crusher yard) and my Yaris ($8,700) for about $9,500 total in trade-in. $4,000 from Toyota, $1,500 from Uncle Sam. Had a few items added to the car for a few hundred dollars... Financed about $19,000 after paying a bit out of pocket. So I was figuring the car actually cost about $18,300. (The rebate from the Uncle wasn't included in what got financed.)


So far I LOVE the Pip! The best vehicle I have ever owned!

 

me too!

 

Range anxiety should be irrelevant (or in the volt's favor, if you're counting electric range only).
Prius is indeed larger. (If you actually need/want it)
From what I've read, the price post-tax seems to actually be in the volt's favor (and if you can't afford that, you probably should be looking at something used anyway, regardless of the model). Let's call it a wash though.
Reliability from what I've read has both at a good track record.
The volt has better numbers in the performance category.
The prius has better numbers in the fuel consumption category, when they're actually using fuel.

So... stripping out the listed categories that are largely ignorable... it comes down to:
1) how much space do you really need/want
2) what you want for performance/handling/nvh
3) what range you tally up most of your miles in

Or to put it another way, the most obvious tradeoffs between the pip and the volt are size and mileage while on gas vs performance and electric range.

 

yes - strip out the trade-ins - they have nothing to do with this and you could've used those on another purchase
So you paid about 28k minus tax rebates for 24k net.

The 0% is a sweet deal

 

incredible price for a new pipa.

 

If useful, for Volt purchase:

Cost: $30,000 (yes, this required some work), -$1,500 state incentive, -$7,500 federal incentive, +$2,250 sales tax = $23,250. No trade in, I kept all the other vehicles. (I would never trade in anyway, private sale is much more in line with my sometimes foolish penny pinching.) Vehicle was delivered 600 miles on a flat bed truck with no imperfections. I did clay bar it to get all the build up out from being on a lot in an industrial area.

Canadian price will differ, of/c.

I did shop the PiP and could not get any dealer to budge on pricing whatsoever, but few dealers actually had the PiP. Regionally, one place would service the PiP while several will service the Volt which I definitely took into consideration. Closest service center to me is 1 mile.

I did not receive any loyalty bonus or special cash back except for $1,000 for not using the financing.

 

Of course for many of us the PiP would be difficult to work due to the scattered availability.

I'd have to drive to Buffalo, NY area to buy a new PiP.

 

It's pretty bad. The nearest place I can buy one is 100 miles away and their asking price was $1,500 above MSRP for the base model. I briefly tried to talk it down, but it wasn't like I could bluff and say that so and so offered me a better deal. They know nobody was offering a better deal and even if they were, I'd be paying another $500 to ship it.

I can't help but wonder how many people would buy these if they were easier to buy. It's almost like Toyota doesn't want to sell them.

 

I'm 266 miles from the nearest PiP dealer.

 

If everyone had the same priorities and crystal-clear analytical abilities, everyone would buy the same car.

 

We could also talk about the folly of bashing a comment based on 14 year old data by proffering 65 year old data.

 

Just saying, it is not true, especially not in the case of the Volt which has topped available measures of reliability for the 2011 model. Dated brand perception isn't an objective measure.

If you don't like the old example of Toyota, consider the more recent Hyundai. I've heard people say all kinds of rotten things about Hyundais, but they are usually based on older models. I had a Hyundai rental for a couple of months in the 1990s and it was indeed garbage. I swore I would not buy anything made by them at the time. However, I now know many people who own Hyundais without problems any worse than other cars. Their consumer satisfaction scores have firmed up and I'm not seeing big repair estimates on newer models.

There is also a contemporary feeling that certain brands of cars are inherently safer despite incrementally more difficult safety tests. I've anecdotally talked to people who swear the Prius must be unsafe due to some ancient perception. When confronted with the actual safety scores of their own vehicle, suddenly the tests must be flawed.

Besides, it seems a bit ironic to be talking about the Prius—the car with arguably the most negative mythology surrounding it—while myth making about other vehicles.

 

No mythology from me... I was talking from my families personal experience, Not brand "perception". I can also tell you one of the best vehicles I ever drove was a 1934 Four Ton Axle Chevy truck we had on the farm when I was a kid growing up. It had a straight 6 cylinder engine. Used a 4 speed transmission that you had to double clutch to downshift. I had no trouble doing that. The old cable brakes were great and actually worked unlike the 1936 version we had that we only had the hand brake to stop it (that one had the brand new hydraulic brakes that had rusted out years before). BTW I was 8 years old when I learned to drive the old girl. Also love the loco LV-211 (an ALCO RS3m) powered by a 567B EMD (GM) prime mover out at the RR museum. That old girl was built in 1953 with the 567B being from the same era. I can tell you she puts on quite a show when the 1200hp 12 cylinder diesel finally fires and comes to life.

However (with the exception of the comment above), every Chevy car/truck anyone in my family has ever owned WAS a piece of junk! Period. Why would I turn around and buy another one? I like the quality of the Toyotas today and also very much respect the dealer nearby. That is one reason I didn't consider the Volt. The other is it wouldn't do what I needed to do with the car, and I don't want to have to rent a vehicle every time I need to haul a load of something.

So get off your high horse as I didn't say anything that wasn't accurate. It was based on my families personal experience. You can buy and drive whatever you want!