Breakeven: It's getting shorter, says USA Today

Hybrid premium payback time depends most on the number of miles you put on the car, and thus the amount of slush money to Dubya's Arab friends. If you go 300 miles a week, your payback time will be half that of going 150 miles. I wonder how many miles per week or per year these media articles assume??

 

The article states that the "payback time" for the Prius is based on a comparison with the price of a non-hybrid Camry.

I've driven a Camry (it was a loaner). I didn't care for it. I'd say the Prius is worth more than a Camry, but since there is no non-hybrid Prius, the comparison has to be a judgement call, and it's understandable that a reviewer who's never owned a Prius would decide that the Camry is the equivalent non-hybrid car.

It's faulty methodology, but still a positive article over all, since the claimed payback times are short enough that John Q. Public will recognize the advantage of a hybrid.

 

I don't get the whole "payback" thing.

You buy a car. You pay for the car. You can choose to buy a cheap $13,000 or an expensive $45,000. Does anyone expect the $45,000 car to pay them back or pay for itself?

I don't calculate the price of the car into anything. When I bought my Prius I paid about the same as when I bought my 1996 Saturn SC2 coupe. And the Prius has the same or more than the Saturn except for leather.

So I consider it starting even.

But...operating costs are way less. Less gas. Less maintenance. Few oil changes. So it's saving me money.

Fini.

 

Your Hummer's payback period (in years) is equal to the MPG of a Prius running in EV mode

 

I'm with you, Godiva. What about leather seats? No one talks about the leather seats premium or the leather seats payback (which is infintely long, I suppose). The whole thing's a bit silly. The camry's about the closest thing and a couple of years ago on here, when the Prius was getting compared to the Corrolla, we were all up in arms. The Camry's about the same size, but is obviously quite different to the prius in a lot of ways. There is no good comparison, but it's about the closest one.

 

I think that they typically assume about 15K mi/year.

 

The leather seat payback period is 2 days. :madgrin:

 

Considering how many miles are put on a rig in one year, it's not an issue. They're arguement is that for the typical user, they don't recoup their costs in a timely fashion. Of course, there are all sorts of issues with that argument, but they always assumed a pretty low total miles driven.

For semi operators a 17% reduction in cost (and that's just for the fuel, that doesn't include the time spent sitting at a pump not moving) is massive. Once you put the skirts and tapered ends onto the trailer it gets even better. I can't believe those things aren't ubiquitous already.

The next thing that needs to be done is installing electrical into rest stations so that truckers don't have to idle while they sleep.

 

You can bet that the trucking companies were calculating payback when they purchase new tractors.

You are vastly under-estimating the number of miles an over-the-road truck travels in a year. My company has a fleet of 40 trucks. They are 2003 or 2004 Volvo's and all have between 1 million and 1.5 millions miles. A truck with a single driver can theoretically travel 334,000 miles in a year. (That is keeping to the legal 16 hours per day and averaging 60 mph) A team driven truck can operate 24/7 and go more than 500k miles per year.

If you look at my company's trucks they are traveling 250K to 300K miles per year. Going from 5 to 6 mpg saves 8,333 to 10,000 gallons of diesel per year. At $4.50 per gallon, 9K gallons of diesel is $40,500 savings per year. (BTW, my company specifies 5.9 mpg as a drivers required yearly average)

A 20 year old truck is worth about $5k or the steel scrap value. 99% of those "old" trucks you see on the road are really new trucks that are "traditional" or "Classic" models. Owner-operators tend to favor the traditional looking trucks that have square grills, large chrome air-cleaners, and big chrome stacks hanging out in the breeze. Trucking companies favor the newer, more aerodynamic trucks because they get better fuel mileage and companies aren't emotionally attached to the look of a truck.

 

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/21/wal-mart-receives-its-first-peterbilt-hybrid-big-rig/

 

Me too. Every day on my way to work all I see are this big inefficient trucks. Maybe half of them have aero cabs, and I have never seen any with skirts for the trailers.
I would have thought that companies with fleets of trucks (like FedEx, UPS, etc) would have bee all over it with the high price of fuel - perhaps the breakeven point still isn't fast enough.

Yep, I've read that they are also have small diesel gensets which are significantly more efficient with more battery power - turning them into hybrids for when they are resting.

Has your company looked at retrofitting things like skirts to trailers to improve fuel economy? Supposedly they improve overall fuel economy by 6%.

If you're putting 300k mi on a truck per year and improve fuel economy from 5.9 to 6.2 mpg, that will save you $10k/year in fuel costs. Surely those things can't most more than $10k to purchase and install?

Freight Wing Incorporated - 6% fuel savings with our Aerodynamic Trailer Skirt, The Belly Fairing and Gap Fairing.

 

Ideally the "payback" idea is based on two identical cars, except one gets better mileage but also costs more.

As noted above, this comparison is tough with the Prius because there isn't a non-hybrid version.

 

The skirts look good but they have one big problem. With those skirts installed, a truck cannot cross "humped" railroad crossings. The trailer would high-center and crush the skirt.

My company manufactures Agricultural equipment. The trucking department is just small operation. We send most of our equipment by contract carriers but haul large specialty items ourselves. Our equipment goes out on flatbeds and is very irregular in shape so I doubt the skirts would give the full 6% saving. Our trucks also travel to rural Ag dealers so crossing railroad tracks is a given.

The hybrid Wal-mart truck is interesting. I read in "Diesel Progress" that Wal-mart has set a goal to increase their corporate fuel economy from 6 mpg to 10 mpg by 2012. They are also experimenting with skirts and active aerodynamic adds. The article was about a trailer that was equipped with a large ducted fan that pulled air from under the trailer and exhausted it into the low pressure wake behind the truck.

 

Two clarifications as regards our personal vehicles ( this is different than a commercial fleet as described above ).

1) THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PAYBACK PERIOD FOR PERSONAL-USE VEHICLES. That's a faulty, shorthand, lazy concept developed by ignorant writers in order to fit a fairly complex formula into a simple coefficient in order to stay on the good side of an editor so as to keep an article short and to the point. For personal use vehicles the only valid concept is that ..
..all vehicles are worthless at sometime in the future;
..personal-use vehicles only accumulate costs during their lifetimes; they do not generate revenue.
..all you can do is add up the expenses ( estimates ) and choose the one that costs the least before the vehicle becomes worthless.

2) There is a non-hybrid Prius. But in a slick sleight-of-hand Toyota has hidden it in the Corolla line. It's the Matrix/Vibe. The Matrix is a 5 door hatch with a 4c engine that just happens to cost about $3500 less than a similarly equipped Prius. That's not a coincidence.

The reason for the two distinctions is that when writers use the lazy coefficient to stay within the word limits of their articles they end up ignoring several key concepts...like resale values. That's pretty important unless you keep a vehicle forever.

They also use only the latest price, say $3.61 per gal, and extend that cost until the end of time. Helloooo, anyone want to bet against that?

 

I'm about to go work for TMC out of Des Moines here soon. They still run the Peterbilt 379's. I was just at Allstate Peterbilt in Saint Paul here and TMC always has a constant order of 379's in place.

Adding skirts or running an aerodynamic truck really is not cost effective. It's like the whole super single tire idea to replace dually tires on the drive axles really didn't do much.

Besides, Companies and owner operators can recoup the fuel costs on freight surcharges.

 

Aerodynamics and super singles don't do a whole lot by themselves but every percentage point adds up. If I remember correctly super single tires on all wheels (taking a 18 wheeler to a 10 wheeler) increases fuel economy 2%. This is due to the wheels and tires weighing 2500 pounds less.

Companies can't just recoup fuel costs by adding surcharges. Yes, they can try to increase prices to cover costs but this only works if everyone goes along. As long a several major carriers hold prices then market prices stay flat. Freight hauling is a commodity and business goes to the lowest bidder. The stronger carriers that take advantage of 8% here, 2% there will stay in business. Those that refuse to change will go bankrupt. The airline industry is an excellent example of this reality.

 

i dont understand what payback means... so if you buy a non-hybrid, what is the payback time on that?

anyway...old argument they will never acknowledge.

when i got my Zenn, after 3 months we pretty much determined our 3rd car a Toyota Corolla was no longer needed. it was old and getting ready to fall apart anyway, so we let my father in law drive it. at the time he had a 23 mile one way commute that he was driving his Ford F-150 4X4. so he was saving a ton of money on gas.

well, the Corolla, started falling apart and he had to put money into it for all kinds of repairs. after about 4 months they had sold their house and moved to town so now his commute was only a few miles. he junked the Corolla and i was talking to him on Sunday at a BBQ and when i tried to apologize for the problems he had with the car, he stopped me and said that even after the repairs he had to do and the extra money he spent, he still figures he saved nearly $100 a month in gas. in the last month before moving, he figured that the savings was closer to $250 because of the increased gas prices.