Why did you buy a plug in and not an electric car.

To go back to the OP's initial question, reason I went with plug-in:

1. Range - Do about 120 miles a day and unfortunately my employer does not have a way for me to charge while @ work. Did not want to experience range anxiety on a daily level
2. Toyota's reliability - Considering I'm probably going to put 30K miles a year on this, I need to make sure I have a car that will last and not have the potential for problems. I can't say that other EV manufactures have that reliability plus Toyota has proven hybrid technology.

At the end of the day, I felt a PHEV provided the best of both worlds and am very happy with the Prime.

 

That's complete and utter BS. I kept track of every penny I spent on my 2004 Prius. 2.9 cents per mile for all maintenance over 150,000 miles and 13 years (most of it was on tires). 52mpg long-term average. So that's about 5 cents per mile for fuel. The Prime is about 20% better on long trips on gas and about 300% better in-town on electricity.

So, 2,500 miles is more like $72 in wear and tear and $120 in fuel. Combined that's less than the cost of a single airplane ticket and we get to stop and many places along the way, plus avoid all the pressure and stress of going to an airport and dealing with the airlines. I put dealing with the hassle of flying somewhere (which I've done many hundreds of times) right up there with dealing with health insurance companies. I guess some people don't mind it but for me, it's several tens of hours of stress for each round-trip. The last family trip was $2,000 more expensive the day we wanted to go than the day we went which was only two days earlier. That's the sort of nonsense I don't want to deal with. Fortunately switching to Southwest made a lot of that go away (flying with anyone else is like having a root canal without anesthetic) but it's still a major problem to align decent deals on tickets with places we want to be on specific dates with the schedules of the two adults and the two kids (which is four different schedules). It's way easier just to hop in the car and go, and not need reservations for anything.

 

No way at all. First off, my range is over 600 on one tank of gas, so i get gas before everyone lines up at the station, and still have decent range. I usually get gas a day or two before it looks like something is coming this way. Yes, after a hurricane gas can be a problem, but I still have range left over on gas usually. I don't see how you'd ever be better off with an EV when there's no electricity to charge it. If there's power anyway, the gas stations have it pretty early here. (I live in a community with mostly underground power)

You yes, but your car is unavailble until you have it charged enough to go and come back from wherever. With my Prime I go and get in my car, go, come back, and don't worry about it, no matter the time or how soon ago I got home.

I don't charge at work, no charger anywhere close to work, I only charge at home. No charging infrastructure in SC.

 

Another vote for "best of both worlds." I get back & forth to work by almost never using gas. But had no problems driving same the car from FL to OH in one long day for Thanksgiving. (If I could, I'd drive it to Africa next month, but I guess I'm stuck with the airlines for that trip. Just as well. It's my 3rd trip to Togo, and I'm not really interesting in driving there. I'll let my local friends do that. LOL!)

I like the freedom and the sights that come with driving. But driving and flying both have aggravations. If I could drive an EV 1200 miles in a day and charge it overnight, I'd be happy with that, but that's not going to happen for a while.

 

I'm a bit anal about being on time, I make sure I get there at least 2 hours before i need to be there and sometimes 3, so I'd be adding more time! That's actually my personality and why an EV is not suitable for me at all. I "need" to have things planned out and capable of doing whenever i need it. Yes, that's anal and I admit that, but it's no less of a need than someone's need to drive an EV only.

 

I have no doubt EV only will, but not in my lifetime, the batteries just aren't good enough or fast enough charging and the charging infrastructure is even further off.

 

Low-res due to PC's limitations, but this is how it looked through the binoculars so that's how I processed it.

 

That assumes I have a house. I don’t. Multi-family housing (apartments, condos) come with additional challenges.

 

We have had PC er’s that negotiated with their Landlords and got charging facilities installed.

 

I.e. Hertz is really taking it in the shorts, losing massive amounts of money for its customers' benefit, because the fees it charges for rentals are less than half their actual vehicle costs, let alone their real estate and wage and administrative costs.

And even more so on your President's Circle status. Are they 'making it up on volume'?

Either that, or that $0.736/mile claim is grossly exaggerated.

 

Do 95 mph in Wisconsin (or a variety of other states) and you loose your license and get tossed in jail .

 

Here is what AAA says: http://exchange.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/17-0013_Your-Driving-Costs-Brochure-2017-FNL-CX-1.pdf
For archives going back to 1950, look at the bottom of this page: AAA's Your Driving Costs | AAA Exchange

For 2017, AAA gives market composite averages of $0.7354/mile for driving 10,000 miles/year, $0.5646/mi at 15k/year, and $0.4944/mi at 20k/yr. But readers looking through the details may notice that these figures average in large vehicles as well as small, rather low MPG compared to anything Prius owners experience, and rather higher end market costs for maintenance and repairs, insurance, registration and taxes, and finance charges. And trading the car in every five years, never saving on the reduced costs of keeping reliable older cars.

I must argue that these claimed figures are meaningful only to someone in an expensive urban area who is balancing a car vs car-free lifestyle. I.e. by going car-free, how much cash does that free up for alternate transportation: public transit, Uber, FlexCar, Car2Go, other car rentals, train tickets, etc?.

Once a consumer elects to own any car at all, the cost calculus changes suddenly and drastically. They are now committed to a fixed period cost exceeding $5k/year (except for a small sedan, at a mere $4252/yr), plus a much smaller per-mile cost. At 15k/yr, only 30-35% of the annual cost (25% for a hybrid) is an incremental per-mile cost, the rest is a sunk period cost. At 10k/yr, only 20-25% of the annual cost (16% for a hybrid) is per-mile, the rest is sunk period cost.

Thus, a driver already having a car and making a drive-my-own-vs-rent choice, is faced with a dramatically different calculus. The rental will not reduce the period cost of the car staying at home. The rental must be balanced against only the incremental per-mile cost of the home car. According to AAA, that is $0.1697/mile for a medium sedan, $0.1401/mi for small sedan, or $0.1258/mi for a hybrid. And I'll still argue that those estimates, especially for the hybrid, still include overpriced maintenance and repairs.

From this perspective, owning a single multi-purpose PHEV starts stacking up quite well against keeping one car for only local trips and commutes, and renting a gasser for longer trips.

 

... or in any ground vehicle out here. Never mind the cops, either traffic congestion or curves in the road will soon cause a quick deceleration to zero.

 

Pure electric cars are commuter cars, while plug-in hybrids are do-everything cars. It's as simple as that. The only pure EV that would do my twice-a-year 1100 "snow bird" trip at all is a Tesla S, and it would add many hours to the trip.

SM-G950U using PriusChat mobile app

 

...especially with Minnesota plates. They target us.

 

As it should be.

Why is that?

 

Hah. when I was in my (way) younger days I got pulled over for doing 140 down route 80 in Utah in a highly customized Fiero (yeah, laugh all you want, but that car moved when I was done with it). There wasn't a car in front or behind me for miles (except, apparently, for the police officer that I never saw). the kicker is the Bonneville salt flats were right off the side of the road, so if I had just pulled off... (well, I probably would have hit a pot-hole in the salt and been killed, but that doesn't make for as much of an interesting story)

 

I got the Prime because I cannot plug-in at home (the apartment owner is a troglodyte about EVs). Wasn't sure about plugging in at work, but that has worked out reasonably well.

Now that I have had the Prime, however, I have decided my next car will be BEV. I need 150 miles range for daily use and that is quite doable with the choices now available such as the Leaf or Bolt. For longer trips, which are very infrequent, I will just rent a gasser. And, of course, I will need to move to somewhere where I can plug in.

 

Because until a 18 months ago interstate speed limits in WI were 65 while they have been 70 in MN for years. When you add in the typical 5 to 10 over. MN drivers are used to driving 75-80 in there home state. But when they cross the state line 20 miles east of the Twin cities, they don’t adjust there speed down to factor in the lower speed limit. 75 in 65 is rolling the dice. 80 in a 65 is ticket for sure if you happen to pass a state trooper thats not preoccupied with a stop in progress. Fortunately WI finally raised its limit to 70. You won’t get stopped for 5 over but they have tightened the Raines on 10 over drivers.

From weekly commute on I-94 from WI Dells to Eau Claire, I can tell you the Majority of the vehicles in the Left lane flying by me have MN plates.


iPhone ?

 

Your anecdotal observation about speeding in WI does not equate correctly to how those from MN actually drive in MN. Yes, a few speed, but most definitely do not. I crossed MN twice over the Christmas holiday (across hwy 90 and up/down 35W), slowing down from 80 mph in WY and SD to just 70 in MN. Others were not flying by at 75-80.

Back on topic, I got a Prime for trips just like that. 38.4 MPG on that crazy 1,800-mile trip. With temperatures down to -5 F, no where to plug in, and the car sitting out in the open all day long, and so much driving at 80 mph, it was brutal. The Prime sure made it convenient though 300 miles between fill-ups and EV after getting off the highway.

Once the coolant is toasty, you can drive EV for a surprising distance. Coming home on Wednesday, I drove 7 miles with the engine off and heater still pumping out heat... despite temperatures well be freezing.