PHV-Plugin- first to order sign up invite from Toyota

Wait, more rambling, just for the heck of it ... .

For the PHEV prius itself, here is my thinking. First, the "cool" factor of having the PHEV could be worth the extra $30-40 per mo in lease payments. I don't drive my motorcycles because they are economical (although some of them are), I drive them for fun. The PHEV could be valued in the same light. It's cool technology, and its fun for me to drive a car like a bat out of hell and pay so little for fuel. It's beating the system in my warped little mind.

But from a savings perspective, it costs me almost 12c per mile to drive the prius at $4.00/gal. Now I have never had an EV car, but from all estimates, it looks like in Oregon it will cost me anywhere from 2.2c to 6c per mile to operate on EV mode for those few miles. Most estimates fall toward the cheaper end, but somewhere I read that the PHEV costs about a $1.00 to charge (the vid maybe, not sure) and if it only gets 15 miles, then that is 6.6c/mi.

Let's say it costs 2.2c per mile to give the PHEV its best advantage. That's a savings of 9.8c per mile. So its pretty simple, you need to recoup $3K by saving 9.8c per mile to make it fiscally worthwhile. that's $3,000 / $0.098 = 30,612 miles to break even.

Now if I drive 666 miles/mo (8K/12) then multiply that by $0.098, that results in a monthly savings of $65.00, whereas the extra leasing cost is just going to be $30-40. So totally worth it.

The problem is, I'm not sure that I can get all those miles to fit in the tiny 15mi per charge EV envelop. Most my miles will be commute miles, but that's only gonna get about 75% of my commute on EV only, and probably less if I drive it aggressively.

Higher per mile EV operating costs hurts the savings, as does more miles outside of the EV window. Similarly, if you get 45mpg on your prius, it only costs 8.8c to operate per mile at $4.00/g fuel.

But again, having the PHEV would be pretty "cool." At least for geeky folks like me. That's why I registered. I cannot realistically get my hands on an EV right now, no matter how cool it would be to have one, but I may very well be able to swap my '10 prius for a PHEV when they come out. We'll see.

Anyway, sorry about the rambling on somebody else's thread.

 

A very valid point. Their is nothing that annoys me more than having to equipment you don't want, such as Bluetooth, GPS, ETC. For those that want toys, they should be able to add it. This is the only area that may stop a purchase of the PHV.

 

Early adopters are relatively price insensitive and feature avid.
You just have to look at the fraction of top-of-the-line trim sold of a model when it first comes out to later on.