Apartment living + buying a Prime- worth it?

I'm seeing numerous new charging stations at local grocery and other shopping sites very recently. So if you drive (rather than walk or bike) to shop, keep your eyes open for fresh new charging choices. Or switch destinations ...

Too bad the Prime doesn't have enough EV range to qualify for the plug-in car sales tax exemption in this state.

 

I was not going to post to this question because i'd thought the two answers above covered EVerything and waiting in an uncomfortable spot for the car to charge for 2 or 6 hours is beyond frustrating for almost anyone.

The Prime has one more trick up it's sleeve. The Prime has Charge Mode.
Charge Mode lets the Prime Charge to %80 of a full plugin charge - while driving. So it's not always necessary to plug the Prime in to be able to use EV mode.

Of course, Charge Mode is less efficient than either driving in HV Mode without Charge Mode enabled - or - actually being able to plug the Prime in.

You probably wouldn't know whether Charge Mode is right for you until you've used it a few times and compare it to normal driving. There are a lot of members here at PC who normally plugin and believe Charge Mode is totally useless for their purposes, just an fyi if it matters..

 

Another factor is the spare tire. Prime has none, so I bought one and keep it strapped down in the cargo area further reducing space back there. So far, though, it hasn't been a problem. Some of the regular Prius models have a spare and some don't, so check on that if it's important to you.

The original owner of my Prime didn't seem to know it had a plug. (It was still in the bubble wrap!) He or she also apparently didn't know that the accelerator pedal has more than two positions. Most of the ECO history pages show about 44-50 mpg before I got it. In local driving in HV, I usually get 65+ mpg, roughly 5-8 better than my wife's '17 Prius trim 2 on the same routes. In a trip last year that took us as far west as AZ and as far north as WY (6,000+ miles) the Prime got an actual 56.6 mpg. At least 1,500 miles were facing 30-50 mph head winds. A few weeks ago, we took my wife's regular Prius to Ohio and averaged 51.2 mpg.

So, there's not a huge difference in efficiency. But if you can get the tax breaks, the Prime is likely to cost less when buying new and not plugging it in won't hurt a thing.

 

I got a 2021 Prime for no other reasons than the whole car looks better. The front end and whole back end of the car look better. The headlights look better as does the rear window and that curved back glass with carbon fiber hatch just makes it look better. It was worth paying the premium. The regular Prius just looks ugly. As far as pluging in to charge goes... I find it an inconvenience even though there's literally rows of charging stations everywhere you look here(San Diego). I've charged it a couple times but the novelty wore off pretty quickly because I found it to be annoying. I did go to the local Tesla dealership and considered buying a couple different 2017 and some 2018 Tesla Model S due to the price being in the same ballpark(I paid $42k for my Prime with 0% interest) before I ultimately 86'd the idea very quickly after deciding I don't want to be limited to a plug-in and traded in my 2015 Prius for the Prime.

 

I have a Prime and live in a condo where I can't charge. Fortunately there is a charger at my work where I charge daily.

I don't regret getting the Prime:

• IMO the car drives much nicer in EV than HV.
• Even if you can only charge a couple times a week, you can save the charge for the short city trips and avoid engine warm ups. Saves gas and wear.

Downsides to public charging:

• Most free stations in my area are for shopping areas and customers only. Gas savings rapidly lost if I need to buy something to use the station. Still good when I actually need to go but stuff...
• Paid stations are way too expensive. For my area its less expensive to use gas than to pay for charging.

I strongly suggest you test drive both cars before you buy. Make sure the Prime is charged before you test drive it. Often dealers don't charge them.

 

$42k for a Prime? How is that possible?

 

Total cost with toyota care platinum. I don't want to waste time dealing with service, tires, dings, scratches. I have better things to do with my time so it simplifies my life. I am in court most of my days so I when I'm at home I don't want to have to think about the car. It's a write off for me anyways so no reason to lift a finger with anything that involves the car

 

If you can live with smaller cargo space, Prius Prime can do everything regular Prius can do and more. I am not sure in your area, but in NE where I live the Toyota rebate is so aggressive that even without the fed tax rebate Prius Prime is cheaper than regular Prius. Add the tax credit, there is no comparison in terms of the price.

 

In my opinion, the Prime charges so slowly that it's practically never worth it to wait for it to charge. At least that's the case around here where everything is relatively far apart. Getting a few miles of range does me almost no good if it's 10 miles to get home. If you can do something else while it charges, like go shopping, or if the charger is only a short walk from where you'll spend time anyway, then it's worth it to plug in.

And many paid stations charge by the minute which is a bad deal with relatively slow charging. Most of those end up being more expensive than using gas. The worst I've seen was one station that charged a flat $5 for an unlimited amount of time. I can only use about $0.70 of electricity at most.

 

While not a Prime owner, I would wait if I did not have charging abilities at home but thought I would in a couple of years. "Primarily" because the options a few years will be better for the same money. Three years from now you may be able to buy a Toyota plugin hybrid or full EV with better than 200 mile EV range.

Plus most public charging stations are costly and time consuming.