My Free Prius

Puts another meaning to grand theft auto

 

I figured that my brand new Prius pays for itself in 4-5 yrs b/c my commute is long. Sooner, if gas goes even higher.

In any case, I'd rather pay ~$22K up front today to Toyota Motor than $300-$500 every month for the next 5-10 years to Big Oil, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Canada, etc.

 

Probably 50% of Canadian oil revenue ends up right back in some US corporation's pockets. So you can probably clump Canada together with Big Oil.

 

The decision to buy a Prius was initially purely financial. After factoring in everthing for the next 5 years (gas @ $3.50, repairs/maint., insurance, tax, purchase/resale price, I determined that I can save about $50 month over my former car (Saab 9-5).

Now after about 2 months of ownership, I kick myself for not getting one sooner. I love driving it and am addicted to the fuel savings game. I have a 2004 Honda CR-V that gets about 22-24mpg, but I put less that 10,000mi on that so I'm holding ouit for the plug-in Prius, a Chevy Volt, or the rumored Honda hybrid.

 

the decision to buy my first Prius in 2004 was purely a tech decision. it was by far the coolest gadget on the road. the decision (not much of one really since i never considered any other option) to buy my 2nd one in 2006 was simply because the writing was on the wall and i knew that financially speaking, it would be the right thing to do. i guesstimated the increase of gas and i admit it was not rising as fast as predicted last year ( i figured gas to be in the mid $3.20's ) but the last month has more than made up for it and i see low $4 all around the country with near $5 for the high end areas by this summer.

but as many are just now seeing, gas is affecting food and everything else. i want to eat and eat healthy which adds another premium to the bill. so the real reason i bought my 2nd Pri was purely self-centered... i want my family to live long and healthy and my Pri will help me do that.

now, bring along a family EV and i am on it like Hillary attaching Obama!

 

I'm not so sure a Prius will really pay for itself.
here is mine in metric and Australian dollars.
I drive about 25,000km per year at 4.3L/100km
my last car was a 2 litre Camry getting about 8L/100km
For simplicity we'll make the difference 4L/100km so the actual sums are worse.
25,000 divided by 100 = 250
250 x 4 litres = 1,000 litres
1,000 litres x 160 cents (10 cents more than the current price here) = $1,600
1,000 litres x 200 cents (I expect to pay this next year) = $2,000
1,000 litres x 250 cents (I expect to pay this in 2010) = $2,500
1,000 litres x 350 cents (lets go for a full dollar increase) = $3,500
so a total fuel saving of $9,600
Well I stand corrected I should be able to trade the Prius in 4 years, and getting $15,000 for it isn't out of the question, although it will have 100,000 kilometres more on it making a total of 160,000 kilometres on the clock.

If I keep the Prius for another 4 years (I had the Camry for 14 years) I think I'll be in front and have a free car. COOL!

 

Ding ding ding. That is exactly why I bought mine. Plus the lower emissions.

 

Amen!

As I see it with oil at nearly four times what it was only two years ago (remember, there was such a thing as $40 a barrel oil), the decision about how much money I was going to spend had been taken out of my hands. That is unless I was going to make some lifestyle changes like moving closer to my job and pretty much riding a bicycle everywhere I went. (That works well in Europe where there's infrastructure to do it, but outside of a few metro areas, try it the States, it doesn't work so well.)

So as I was resigned to spending the money, I reasoned that could at least control where it was going to go to, and frankly I've had more than enough of being raped by OPEC.

I am mildly offended that Detroit hasn't come up with their own real solution (the American hybrids are at best second rate knock-offs using Gen I technology that they bought....) Maybe Detroit will wake up and remember that you don't do great things by talking and thinking about them, do them by actually doing something.