Is it worth buying a prius when I only drive 25 miles round trip each day?

That gas station stays in business because I think some people take a strange pride in paying the most-because they can.

 

Sorry, I did NOT buy Tiburon on MSRP $25K is a joke. at that time everyone can pressured Hyundai dealer to the lowest price as possible, why? no body wanted to buy Hyundai, well today is different with Hyundai sales are pretty good (a downside: no good bargain price anymore).

I bought $21K ( the car price as I remember $19K)including tax/taxes/title fee/license plate fee. all included, sun roof, 6 speaker with sub woofer, shiftronic, automatic headlight off, and so on. I almost bought toyota Paseo/Corolla, but could not resist on Tiburon with a bit extra $ different and never owned 2 door coupe before..

I sold it since I had been fixing this and that, and transimission is the big spending $$$ to fix in the future ( knowing some time-bomb is ticking while driving).
I planned to stay 2 year longer with Tiburon, but prius splending reduced price was good since I did not want to stuck in Hwy with broken car.
either I sold it in 2 year or broken (priceless) as a gambling, or got a good deal to move on.

I spent ~$250 on Tiburon monthly for gas.. and cut much on prius just a fraction ~70 monthly
and already did calculation on my side.

you can not trust Hyundai Transmission to run to 200K-300K miles, I know my Hyundai isinde and outside. Never visit dealer unless for major issue.

sorry, I bought the car for a longgggggg time usage..... my expectation on Hyundai was 10 years, and hopefully $12-15 with Prius( assuming extra $ for replace HV battery after 8-10 year one time)

 

Broken cars are not priceless. $500 at the junkyard

Anyway I would never trade-in a car that still runs. I remember I had an old Dodge Shadow and was offered $500. Perhaps $2000 if I sold it privately. I said "no" and kept driving it another 260,000 miles. I saved more $$$s by keeping the car.

 

$500?... you are lucky!!!

on my area, Broken Hyundai car is Priceless, they would give me $200 max by bring the car to junk yards, or $0 by let them towing :|

as I said, Hyundai transmission was not good, tranmission was falling apart fast!!, fixing it will coast more than selling the car.
not trading honey!, Sell you almost broken car while still drivable...

on the other side, Hey!.... I save $200 monthly on my prius, and rarely drives my wife Sienna card during the weekend trips( mostly for kids: swimming lesson, B' Parties, parks, ).

If I had Honda or Toyota, I could sold $ on junk-yard.
Honda and Toyota still has good $ selling point at the end of it's life in my area

but some people do not want hassle, trading the car while almost broken and still drivable.

 

Seems to me that a 15-mile round-trip commute and a Prius plug-in would be a match made in heaven.

 

If you can plug in for your return also, it would be great!

 

Well over 100 MPG average is very easy for me on my 17-mile-each-way commute where I recharge at work.

 

If my commute were less than 12 miles round-trip, my fuel costs for commuting would be zero.

 

Commutes under 5 miles one way are difficult to get over 50 mpg unless the Prius speed is kept under 35 mph especially in the winter time.
The 3rd gen Prius doesn't have the coolant reserve tank like 2nd gen Prius SO to get the same MPG savings as the 2nd gen Prius when stringing short trips together a 3rd gen Prius driver needs to keep the time between each short trips --which he/she is stringing together -- shorter - especially in the winter time- to avoid losing the coolant heat from the previous short trip.

BTW-- My commute is 15.8 miles if I don't have to stop I can get 70 mpg on a round trip. of 32 miles in the summer time. On a .5 mile-2 minute trip to a nearby supermarket I'm getting 18 mpg

If you have a long range Lexus and can afford to get a new short range only car and you have access to a garage where you can recharge a bEV and your commute is only 11 miles each way ( 22 miles round trip commute ) than consider a Nissan Leaf... Note that on a really cold day BEV - Plug in range is diminish by cold weather ... but a Nissan which has a official range of about 70 miles should be able to make the round trip commute of 22 miles even in the cold. A Leaf doesn't emit any emission -- and if you power your electricity by solar or wind or hydro then you'd bee really carbon neutral as long as that Nissan battery holds out

 

I drive 20 miles round trip mostly on the freeway but here in Hawaii with so much traffic on most days you can't drive faster than 30-45mph and that is on a good day. The afternoon traffic is a mpg killer, avg speed is 5-35mph. On a full tank based on the car display, i get about 475-500 miles on the tank, with average mpg 51-53, avg speed of 17-18mph. I have no regrets with the Prius, I still have a Tacoma but only drive it on the weekends. There is no better feeling than paying $40 every 2 weeks on the Prius versus $70 every week on the Tacoma.

 

It depends... My commute is 30 miles RT, but usually not every day. I'm currently driving about 8000 miles a year. So I had a similar decision... here's some things I considered:

* What's your total annual (or monthly) miles? Do you live in a part of the country with relatively expensive gas?
* What kind of gas budget are you used to (or can deal with?)
* What other cars are you thinking about buying; what's their price difference to Prius, and what MPG do they get?

My previous car got 30 MPG, and I figured out that the difference between a Prius and another 30MPG+ car was only a few hundred a year. But if I started looking at cars that got 24 MPG ... It got hard to swallow at least psychologically!

* Do you have to sit in traffic a lot, crawl around looking for parking, etc?
Prius does really well at these things. If your 12 mile commute takes an hour, you're still burning some serious gas.
I sometimes think they should rate cars in "Minutes per gallon" vs. "Miles per gallon."

* Do you think you might move or otherwise end up doing more commuting than you do now?

I find it reassuring to know that if I end up driving more, I'm probably not going to have a huge change to my gas budget. It also provides some buffer against fluctuation in gas prices. (Though the accompanying cost of living increases never seem to care what car I drive. ;-) )

In my case, the other cars I as considering weren't wildly cheaper than the Prius ended up. So the MPG vs. car price tradeoff wasn't a big gamble in terms of car price for me. (I.e., even if I keep driving only 8000 a year, it'll even out in about 5 years.) But if in your case, there's a big price difference vs. other cars on your list, that changes the math, obviously.

 

If I only needed to drive 25 miles a day I would get a Nissan Leaf over a Prius. They make a lot more sense as a second car or for short range drivers.

 

welcome!

or a prime