Justification to buy a Prius Prime

There's a lot of overlap between your reasons and ours. Ours are:

• My wife is working on finally getting her driver's license (she's from China where the buses are awesome, so she never had any need to learn to drive, until now, or, well, 10 years ago when she first got here!). Anyway, point being we'll soon need two cars.
• My "new" (1 year now) job requires me to drive ~22 miles to and ~22 miles back. I can charge at work, so that's a perfect match.
• Our current 2009 Prius is at 125Kmiles now, and with me driving it that much it'll probably kick the bucket pretty soon. If my wife drives it 5ish miles per day, it'll probably have plenty of life left in it.
• Internal-combustion engines (ICEs) increasingly disgust me. That's partly because my Gen-2 Prius keeps turning on or leaving on the engine when it obviously doesn't need it on, and that just drives me buggo, to the point where I just want a car that doesn't have, or at least doesn't typically use, ICEs.
• My wife doesn't like the Volt, and I'm not a big fan of the battery's intrusion into the cabin either.
• The Bolt looks good, but I'd prefer to first get a car that for-sure has no range issues.
• With Trump in office, no idea how much longer EV incentives will persist, so get something while it's hot, so to speak.
• Driving such longer distances, the chances of getting into a wreck go way up. So, I really want something with all of the "ADAS" active-safety functions I can get. (I'm 55 now, and I've never been at fault in any accident, and hardly even been in any at all, but I don't want to take any chances!)
• Toyota reliability.

 

I know the Prime drives a lot better than the PIP. We have the advanced package and its pretty cool. Its my wifes car and it doesn't like when I drive it. I always get notifications for being too close to the yellow line when hugging corners. It also will yell at you when you switch lanes without using your turn signal. The back up assistant is really nice when being in parking lots or really backing up anywhere. When backing out of my driveway it will go off with plenty of warning if a car is zipping by.. Only once did she have the front crash notification come on because she came up on someone quickly.

 

The gen 4 Prius's have way better body roll, corning and ride characteristics than the previous versions. I have an 04 and, while I don't really mind the corning aspects, I do mind the ride in harsh conditions. The G4 is way, way better in this regard so I see the handling advantages as just a bonus.

 

It is hard for me to really give an objective view on this. I owned a Camry Hybrid before and honestly the drive characteristics for the two vehicles is pretty similar. But I stopped being anything near an aggressive driver a good 8 years ago when my wife yelled at me when I cut a guy off who was being a jerk and she told me I wasn't being any better. Since then I just drive in my zen mode most of the time, I don't care much about what you do, my job is to make it to the other side when I get there. So corning for me means can I go around the corner in a reasonable fashion, sure can. Believe me I had my day back in my 20s with my red sporting coupe, oh how I miss that car at times.

The last three advantages for an EV is what should help you decide. Do these clear the cost difference between a more basic car with similar safety features? Also are you only considering the Prime? The Volt would probably be a good fit for the distance since it may be able to hit 100% of the driving distance to work and back on a single charge. After incentives it is pretty close to a wash in cost but it is a very different car from a ride perspective but if performance is more your thing than it may be a better fit.

As to coverage, basic coverage is the same as any Toyota 3yr/36k miles. You get a 2 year maintenance allowance, 3 year Safety Connect if you buy the advanced model, 10 year 150k mile battery warranty in CA plus 15 year 150k for CARB components (not sure what that covers, it is in the book somewhere).

Selling a car to someone isn't an easy thing, it really is about learning why you even need a car and then we can help tell you what justifications a particular car may have in your use case. For me the green aspects of the car itself was a big selling point. This is my third hybrid, I wanted the most efficient hybrid I could get, and this pretty much hit that on the head for my usage pattern. I also wanted something that was reliable based on history with hybrids and Toyota's system has been very well tested.

Other vehicles we thought about were:

• CMAX Energi, which we rejected because Ford just never comes close to their EPA numbers and they are already lower than the Prius by a good bit.
• BMW i3 with range extender, but the range extender feature only gives you like 75 miles so it is almost a gimmick (I know why they did it, doesn't mean I don't still feel like it is a gimmick, in the UK where the rules are different it offers over 90 miles because they didn't programmatically short the fuel tank fill).
• Volt - comfort in this car is just not as good from our try, it felt cramped, and the back seat was unusable in my opinion. Also it could not have a roof rack at the time (still not sure there is one available).
• Outlander PHEV - rejected since it isn't available still in the US even though I kept my truck an extra 2 years waiting for it.
• Tesla X - I really liked the idea but honestly it was a non-starter due to long trips to visit family up in Maine where superchargers just doesn't exist

I would say sit in the car and make sure you feel comfortable.

Neat feature to think about:
Dynamic Cruise Control (or Radar controlled...) - this is good if you are at highway speeds and want to just pace at a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you. May help to ease the work of commuting but if it is stop and go in the commuter lane then sort of meaningless, I avoid CA rush hour traffic as much as possible when I visit.

 

Also much better highway mileage. Much better than my 2009 Touring at least.

 

if money is tight, keep the lexus. there's no way to justify a new purchase unless it costs less than what you get for the lexus.

 

Definitely consider the Bolt as well.

There are many interesting comparison factors between the Volt and P.Prime, some of which you mentioned above:

• Volt has >2 times the EV distance, but when you run out of battery, the P.Prime gives much better gas mileage (~40 vs. 55MPG).
• IIRC, the P.Prime has considerably longer total range, since the Volt's gas tank is pretty small.
• I personally don't think the price is awash after incentives; as I recall, the P.Prime is around $3K cheaper, at least based upon Federal (no state incentives in TX as far as I know, although Austin has incentives related to charging).
• The Volt's battery pack really does take a big cumulative chunk out of the cabin. It sits pretty high relative to the seats. In our test drive we kinda felt like we were sitting in a box!
• The Volt has a liquid-cooled (and heated) battery pack. I personally am not optimistic about battery life expectancy on the P.Prime out here in Austin! I bet it'll be down below 20 miles EV range within 5 years.
• The Volt is a bit peppier.
• As I recall, ADAS features were pretty comparable.
• The (new) Volt's fifth rear seat is pretty much unusable, except probably for a child seat (haven't tried it).
• Although neither has lots of cargo space, as I recall, the P.Prime has somewhat more than the Volt.

 

You could probably get much more than $9000 for your Lexus when selling privately.

 

"What kind of oil does the Prius Prime take?" Synthetic 0W-20 @ 10,000 miles or 1 year. So what? That's not a decision breaker.
"how many miles are you covered for services?" "The ToyotaCare plan covers normal factory scheduled service for 2 years or 25,000 miles, whichever comes first. 24‑hour roadside assistance is also included for 2 years and unlimited miles. "
"How is the Prius Prime's suspension and body roll?" Quite good. Fun to drive on a winding country road.
"How about turning radius?" Good. I don't have the number.

 

Routine maintenance costs are pretty low on a Prius Liftback or Prime. No belts to replace (there are none). Brakes have lasted me on my 2005 for over 140,000 miles because of the regenerative braking. Oil changes every 10,000 miles, air filters every 30,000 miles, coolant change every 100,000 miles, spark plugs every 120,000 miles, and of course tires. That's about it. I also like the capability to use the car as a generator for items around the house when there is a power outage by using a DC to AC inverter. I have used it a few times. It is more efficient than a regular generator which constantly runs all the time. The Prius will only run when the battery is depleted and charge until a certain level of charge is maintained. Then the engine shuts off until it is needed to charge again. The car takes from the grid to drive and can give when the grid is out.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

There is no reason to change.

 

As always, many of you provide insights on topics and issues that I don't even actively think about but definitely appreciate. I bought the PRIME just because it looked great and I love the techs inside since I am a Techie. I didn't even think of half of the stuff you guys mentioned lol

After driving 2 Honda minivans for about 17 years, I enjoy driving my Prime so much!

Thanks all.