Featured As gas prices have dropped, so have owner's EV/hybrid loyalty

but as the original article states, it's all tied to gas prices. hard to know how many of the 3% of alt fuel vehicle buyers are in it for the environment, to save money, get off foreign oil, or a myriad of other reasons.

 

Edmunds bought a BMW i3-REx for just under $50k and sold after a year and 10,000 miles for $26k. Barely broken in but it also shows the true worth of a car is found in the second owner's purchase price.

In one respect, the second owner is free of market distortions found in the new car offerings. Cars are priced for the value they provide.

Bob Wilson

 

I look at the drop as a good thing, 'cause now, someone who wanted an EV/hybrid, but couldn't afford it, now has a chance to. If life hands you a dilemma, make dilemmanaid.

 

The business choice of not rolling out Prius PHV further, limiting it to just the 15 initial states, then ending production without any word of future plans caused quite a stir. Some people absolutely refused to accept the reality that a much-improved successor would follow, labeling Toyota as unwilling to support anything with a plug. Their greenwashing efforts, based on nothing but anecdotal evidence, was relentless. It was a sign of industry change and the inability to deal with it. They made up excuses to feel better.

Since then, we have got confirmation that there was indeed a much-improved successor on the way. The conclusions drawn based on just observations of the automaker alone were proven incorrect. The problem was as stated, the market has changed. That new audience would be even more difficult to reach. This article about some hybrid owners switching back to traditional vehicles highlights the problem isn't just how to get people out of traditional vehicles. There's a step backwards occurring.

Personally, I'm really annoyed that so many Volt enthusiasts fought against me, claiming traditional vehicles were not the competition. They were wrong, very wrong. So much time & effort was wasted trying to prove they wouldn't impair sales. They claimed battery technology would improve to such a degree, sales would grow. Nothing else mattered. They'd dismiss evidence to the contrary. Heavy dependence on tax-credit subsidies and the hope of higher gas prices was what they focused on.

They why I focused on Toyota's goal of cost-competitiveness. They never gave into GM's approach of striving to deliver more EV by making tradeoffs. Wandering too far from the purchase priorities of mainstream consumers means a struggle to sell... which is exactly what we've seen with Volt. Low gas prices and the effect that has had on the hybrid market make that rather obvious.

Think about how Toyota was able to share the Prius platform with Prime to keep cost low. How much battery-capacity could be added without raising the floor and having to find a location for the charger without using the middle seat? You wouldn't get much, but we've all seen how much of a space penalty there is for offering a lot more.

Toyota's choice to use a little more space, but require major inconvenience is what we'll be getting. It will be something to entice buyers to take a closer look. That little bit of compromise provides a reinforcing effect, reminding the owner of their choice to not just succumb to low gas prices. It's basically a tiny ego stroke... which is exactly what Prius has provided for the past 16 years.

Something new was needed in this market now facing a saturation issue. Traditional vehicles offering interior features that had once been exclusive to Prius means offering a new draw. 22 miles of EV is just enough to satisfy without increasing cost substantially. It's just enough to make those considering the purchase of a traditional vehicle to take a closer look.

 

i think we're putting the cart before the horse here, or counting our chickens before they hatch.

are we declaring prime a success story at this point?

 

The point is to not dismiss it. Some have already.

 

agreed. i'm keeping an open mind.

 

Look at it from the perspective of computer purchases...

There's no doubt that solid-state hard-drives are better than traditional hard-drives in several ways. They are much faster, far more robust, and use less electricity. Despite that, people continue to purchase the traditional choice anyway... even though the price difference is very small now.

Why does that happen? Why not the upgrade to the newer technology?

There's the matter of capacity too. Notice how people don't usually get the maximum available? Why is that?

That "more is better" mindset doesn't exist for computers like it supposedly does for vehicles. Many are making assumptions. Heck, there's even a DOA thread. Toyota is about to find out what the situation actually is.

 

more is better if the price is the same. not so for storage, not sure about hard drive costs.

if volt is twice as much, a lot of people won't choose more.

 

a lot, i know that.

 

Interesting but rings true:

Understand I am OK with the improved Gen-4 handling. Just the data suggests a couple of seconds in 0-60 mph have been left off. Sad to say, the shortened, 0-30 time, is hard to find in the data. Perhaps that might have made it more attractive to ordinary drivers?

Oh well, if others are moving back to ordinary cars, I doubt we'll hear much from them here. Given the slim pickings for vans, pick-ups and sports cars, understandable. We have seen migration to plug-ins and other than a few intemperate comments, a reasonable choice. Then of course there have been the occasional diesel-phile.

Oh well, folks need to be happy with their ride.

Bob Wilson

 

It is apparent that many that bought a hybrid during high gas prices felt that it was a compromise over what they wanted, or we wouldn't see the backslide to larger vehicles now.
I don't think you lump plug ins with hybrids in that regard. It could be more of the opposite. If they left an EV, going back to an ICE, even a hybrid one, is the compromise being made. The selection is still small for plug ins, specially outside of California, and there isn't one available that meets their needs now.

 

Yes long since...I bought my 2006 when the Prius quota for full credit was about used up...they continued 50% in to 2007 then caput.

State credits mostly gone except tax free in Wash DC for any vehicle over 40 MPG city EPA

 

Unless it's a case of finding something about the EV experience unacceptable - range anxiety, recharging situation not being as good as expected, Nissan Leaf battery degradation, that kind of thing...

Nobody's buying an EV because they feel they have to (unlike with hybrids, where there was plenty of settling for a smaller/more efficient vehicle than desired, and now that gas is cheap, people feel they can get what they want again), but I wouldn't be surprised if some people are buying them and figuring out that they don't work for them.

 

If you have owned a Prius and never changed brakes, and then own a Minivan like me you need brakes and rotors at 10000 miles, you start to get hybrid-spoiled and never want regular brakes again. If you have not experienced a hybrid or EV, you may not know what you are missing.

 

I don't think the article is necessarily representative of all green-car owners. Take me for instance. I started out with a 2005 Prius back in late 2004. When the PiP came out in early 2012, I sold the 2005 to my son (who is still driving it), and bought a PiP (which I am still driving). We just sold our 12-year-old minivan and got a Highlander Hybrid, despite the hybrid version costing thousands more than the gas-only version. Next year the plan is to sell my wife's Mini Countryman for a Chevy Bolt, and still keep/use the PiP.

 

I know your pain all too well. We had a '98 Dodge Grand Caravan that would eat the left front brake rotor every other brake job, which was every 15K to 20K miles. The Sienna I think went 35K to 40K in between brake jobs. The 2005 Prius finally needed front brakes at 150K miles. I don't see the PiP needing brakes until 200K miles or more (it's at 100K miles and something like 6 to 7mm of pad remaining).

 

There is an easy answer to that question. Computers (and phones & tablets) are offered, usually, in at least 3 memory and/or storage sizes. The minimum that the device needs, the size that most people will need and pay for and the biggest size that the seller thinks they can gouge on price before users go to a third party add-on or another seller

Very different than cars... bigger memories rarely take up but a tiny incremental amount of space, if any.

 

Regarding the 3 sizes of tablets/phone storage size comment, I've personally found that the incremental cost to to go from one storage size up to the other is minimal, and once you get to the largest capacity, you are getting the most bang for your buck. The iPad Air 2 was offered in 16, 64 and 128GB sizes when we bought ours. It was only $100 to quadruple the amount of storage from the base, and only an extra $200 to increase it eight-fold from the base. To me that was a no-brainer. If anything, charging $500 for only 16GB of storage is price gouging, when you can get 4 times the amount for only $100 more.

Larger capacity memory modules can and do take up more physical space. The iPhone SE is basically an iPhone 6s stuffed into the smaller form-factor of an iPhone 5s. The iPhone 6s has a max storage capacity of 128GB, but when stuffed into the SE's form factor, they could only go as high as 64GB due to storage module size issues.