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

Range is the easiest answer for me. Even a Tesla can only go about 300 miles, 600 miles is my sweet spot for an electric only. (a day of driving.)

Then there's charging time, even on 220V (That's why I didn't get a Bolt or Volt), it's just longer than what i want, and there's no way I can afford a Tesla Model S.

The Prime is the king of range extending high mpg and mpge cars...

As for being totally new, not so much. There are some differences between it and a gen 4 prius, but it's still mostly a prius overall.

 

The Prius is a PROVEN high reliability monster; it really has no competition in that area. I've owned a 2012 Plug-in Prius (PIP), and it was the CHEAPEST and most reliable of the about 40 cars I've owned. My Prime is on the same reliability path, with unexpected 32+ EV-only miles, and HUGE range for my city, surface street driving, occasional freeway, of 1800 miles or so. Electric only cars can't touch that (neither can ICE cars). I also love: having fuel CHOICE (especially during emergencies or power outages), quickness of charging, ability to fuel up at home most of the time. The extreme range lends itself to frequent local trips, or sudden long trips, one after the other; you're not stuck waiting hours to charge up. Yeah Tesla (super expensive) has some "faster" chargers, but you're restricted to a very few locations on select routes. The infrastructure is just not ready yet for my needs!!

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

AND, don't forget the Toyota rebates ($3125 for me), local dealer discounts (~$2500 when I purchased), Federal tax credit ($4502) and State incentives ($1500)...It would have been crazy to not purchase the thing when someone is willing to take a third off the price of the car. Add to that a descent trade-in for my 2004 Prius and I figure I got a 13+ year newer and much much fancier top of the line Prius for less than $24K net after taxes, etc.

 

i had a commute of 100 miles a day and gas mileage and reliability was a priority. Even better was the use of the carpool lane!

So I said good bye to my bmw 3 series.

But it's been awesome to have the gas savings and the new tech.

Today i only drive 10+ miles a day thus the EV range has been more of a sticking point. While i do get about 30 miles of driving in EV it's been almost annoying not to have more distance.

I'd like to get an all electric car yes but i dont know if that's practical for my wife and I for longer distances.

 

Range is the simple answer for me. Our annual holiday is 1100 miles from home to destination. The longest drive in a day is 600 miles on the motorway (80mph) in a single day. That takes 8ish hours including stops. With electric today that would be at least 3 hours longer for charging if not more. That’s just too long for the holiday.

I wouldn’t just buy a car for two weeks away though so the other point is that the Prime is able to do 85% of my monthly miles on electric with it’s current range so I wouldn’t win too much going full electric.


iPhone ?

 

I was the first person to buy a plug-in hybrid from our dealership. It had sat on their lot for months before I bought it. The corporations have decided not to market them in this region. So there is little interest. Only designated regions get the marketing. Our dealership has told me that they are prohibited from ordering them, they only get whatever corporate sends them.

When I have asked about how to get a specific model or color, the 'best' idea presented has been for me to drive out to California and buy one there.

There are very few public places to plug-in an electric vehicle around here.

 

my purchase was almost 6 years ago, and there weren't many bev's. the choices are expanding, and i'm hoping my next one will be a bev.
i'm not ready for long distance though, it would just be a local runabout.
i wish toyota would make an electric prius, without compromising the interior.

 

Requirements drove the purchase:

• range
  • 1,000 mi any route in 24 hours
  • 120 mi without refueling or recharging
• safety
  • dynamic cruise control assists on 1,000 mi trips
  • collision avoidance braking

A broken motor mount bolt in our 2014 BMW i3-REx took it out of service for two weeks. The unreliability of the BMW forced the decision to replace our 2010 Prius with the 2017 Prius Prime.

Bob Wilson

 

Come on Bisco, if wishes were Prii, we all could ride (for hundreds of reliable miles!!)

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I turned in my leased Fiat 500e when we got our Prime last month, so I lived with a BEV for nearly three years. The Fiat was a great car for us: very low lease payment, virtually no maintenance (cabin air filter and tire rotations) and only 2-3 cents per mile to drive. We had an ICE for the first year, but I seldom drove it, so gave it to our son and had only the Fiat for nearly two years.

Range didn’t affect us much. My “commute” is about 8 miles, so seldom drove more than 25 per day. Vacations / weekend getaways were done by air or Amtrak.

I personally would have been happy with the the 150 mile Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt. Heck, I was looking at used Leafs for <$10,000, but my wife wanted something capable of easy road trips. She also liked the looks of the Prime, so “happy wife, happy life”!

In the 6 weeks of Prime ownership, we’ve taken two short trips that would have been outside the range of the Fiat / used Leaf without charging. Also ran out of electricity (EV mode) on two occasions where the gas engine came on. Still have 3/4 tank of gas.

Bottom line is that plug-in hybrids are the best of both worlds. The harder choice is WHICH plug-in is best for your needs.

 

I'm sure Sergio Marchionne appreciated that . . . not!
Fiat Chrysler CEO: Please don't buy Fiat 500e electric car | Reuters

Bob Wilson

 

I looked at the Tesla Model S and X and gave it a serious look before I got cold feet. I test drove both cars a few times before deciding that I wanted a Model X. But.... I started to drive down to Socal very often and with a return trip of 600+ miles every weekend, the multiple stops for charging would of annoyed me to no end. It's bad enough that I'm driving 5 hoursbut if I had to add 1 hour extra for charging each way that would put me at 12 hours round trip vs 10 hours round tip from Central California to Laguna Hills.

So far i'm averaging 700 miles + per tank starting with a full charge of EV there and back. Driving 700 miles for less than 30 dollars worth of gas is amazing.

 

Always have to ask yourself how much your time is worth. Sitting around waiting for a car to charge just doesn't sound like something I would ever want to do. With the prime, I can charge when it's convenient and just drive it when not. Yes, I still have to wait for the gas to pump so life isn't perfect but 5 minutes pumping gas every 10 hours of driving (<1%) is much better than 1 hour charging every five hours driving (17%). AND that's assuming charging stations are in a good place...Gas stations are usually located where needed.

BUT, as I said earlier, I expect more charging stations and I expect eventually they will be located in convenient places and they will be cost effective and will charge much more quickly. Not there yet.

 

1. Very low price (with rebate, dealer discount, and tax credit, the final price was 1/2 to 2/3 of EV on market, and cheaper than regular Prius)
2. super long range
3. proven Toyota hybrid technology
4. ability to refuel quickly at any gas stations instead of hard to find charge stations

 

A plug-in is much closer to a hybrid than a pure electric vehicle, I would think. Accordingly, if I could weigh in, reasons for not getting pure electric:

1. Range anxiety (big time)
2. Tedious charge time
3. Finding charging stations
4. Pretty much forgetting about road trips
5. Keeping warm in winter
6. Resale value?

 

I don't yet have any plug-in car, but am eyeballing the Prime as my primary travel car. My reasons for that choice:

* Range. I frequently travel a specific 400 mile one-way journey, on a light traffic route with sparse services, currently at least 8 round trips per year. After a very unpleasant encounter with a price gouging clerk capitalizing on his holiday fuel monopoly to line his pocket, back in the days of much shorter gasoline fuel ranges, I now insist that even my gassers have the range to complete this trip without refueling. No available EV even comes close.

* Other travel frequently also exceeds EV range, also in sparsely serviced areas.

I can't justify a pure EV until the spouse is willing to trade up from her daily local driver, a 1989 Integra. I bought it for her before we were married, so it seems to have some sentimental value. And it still runs well enough to serve its purpose.

* Efficiency. Even when running purely on gasoline, the Prime is a very significant step up from my current car, so will reduce both CO2 emissions and national-security-issue oil consumption.

* Surplus solar capacity. My home PV system is overproducing somewhat, more than the house can use on a year round basis. Those surplus net-metering credits now expire after a certain time, so I'm losing some credit. A PHEV will soak up and make use of that 'free' fuel for local travel, reducing dead dino fuel even more.

* Expanded solar capacity. My house can easily take another half dozen solar modules (the first two will even be simple plug-and-play, no new rails or wiring or other hardware needed), and the PHEV will be good reason to expand it. With somewhat more work, the home solar system can eventually be expanded to fully fuel a pure EV too.

 

Paraphrasing the first man on the moon, the Prius Prime is a small step forward in terms of consumption, but a giant leap in terms of driving pleasure in respect to the regular Prius. In fact, under certain circumstances the fuel saving potential of the Prius Gen IV is higher than the Prime, because it weighs 100 kg less and has the same high efficiency powertrain.

However, my side although appreciated low gas consumptions were not a #1 priority: I liked the fact that the Prime offers more fuel options (mine has a solar roof panel too) a lot more drive pleasure, even in HV mode (it is like a regular Prius with a plenty traction battery) a quieter environment (I started to listen to classic music in the car, an unprecedented fact for me).

But above all, I got rid of Prius repeated heating cycles after every stop that lasts more than 3 minutes (the abominable S1 phase), and I don't need anymore ICE running just to keep me warm, even if I am stuck in the traffic, which happens to me more often than I would..

 

Because Toyota doesn't make an all-electric. Yet. And the Toyota rebate, Mass. state rebate, and potentially vanishing federal tax credit were too good to pass up.

 

Because i didn’t have the ability to charge at home and didn’t know if I ever would.

Plus safety features (including headlights - Tesla headlights are rated as poor). And Toyota reliability.