Study Says Hybrids Are a Lousy Value

Good thing my wife had no idea what was going on in my brain when we parked . . .

I haven't done one but this sounds about right. The Y displacement would handle the first order term and then scaling the log values should handle just about any exponent ("plus a constant" the waitress muttered.)

Bob Wilson

 

WOW! This thread went from 0 to way over my head in no time flat!

 

Mine too, but that never stopped me before.

 

If that were the case why not report the extra hp the hybrid version has? For ex, 4 cylinder Camry has 160 something hp but the hybrid version has 191 hp.

So why didnt they calculate the payback for the V6 version with even more power?

 

^^ This is an argument that cannot be won, because the manufacturers to my knowledge have never made two completely identical cars except for the drivetrain difference. Certainly in the early Prius days, this "technique" was used to hide the actual hybrid premium price.

Very annoying, if you ask me.

 

I'm afraid I fell into a bit of a rabbit hole. Bob Wilson and others may find something of interest here..

Dead Reckonings - Lost Art in the Mathematical Sciences
A very nice intro: http://myreckonings.com/wordpress/2008/01/09/the-art-of-nomography-i-geometric-design/

 

LOL!

I'm Southern and I know a 'tar baby' when I sees it. Yeap, I'm not goin' to get stuck in any . . . '4-Variable Nomogram' article . . . nope. You can't fool me with a . . . Uuummm 'Hexagonal Charts, and Triangular Coordinate Systems . . .' well maybe a quick revie

 

Enjoy, Bob

As a simple conceptualization I imagine a beam on a fulcrum, with variables sitting on it spaced from the center in proportion to their weights.

Wrong, good enough, or inadequate ?

 

Time for a graph, but not a a weighted nomogram

 

My favorite here is Lightning Calculators, particularly part II: The Methods. Numerous tricks I've long used, and plenty more I would have used had I known them when my brain was less old.

 

I feel both my hybrids are work every penny. Not everything is quantifiable. What about enjoyment, quietness, ease of use?

 

That article is disingenuous (if that is the right word to use).

People forget that the Prius is a surprisingly roomy car--it has more interior space than most older generation "mid-size" cars. As such, the Prius is actually priced right, especially considering that a new Honda Accord EX sedan with the 190 bhp K24 I-4 engine costs almost as much as new Prius. And you get circa 19-22 more miles per gallon in conventional daily driving, too.

 

FYI, I sent a request for a copy of the report but haven't received anything beyond an acknowledgment of my request. We'll see but this may be enough to get the CarGurus to share the source materials with the community. <grins>

FYI, my latest request:

Bob Wilson

ps. Accidentally used my work e-mail but I sent a disclaimer that it was not an official agency request . . . my bad.

 

Looks like all we're going to get is the 'press release:'

Hybrid Cars: Not a Good Investment

<SIGH>Like the old CNW Marketing "Dust-to-Dust" report, all we are getting are the press releases, not the report itself. As far as I'm concerned, we can staple it to the CNW Marketing 'press releases.'

More importantly, anyone who repeats the 'press release' should be challenged to "stand and deliver the report." Point out how lazy it is to be suckered in by a 'press release' and think the actual report, the facts and data, are proven by what is little more than an executive summary. Bolvine fecal material!

Bob Wilson

 

Obviously, crunching the numbers in n dimensions is the appropriate thing to do, and I hope Bob or one of the other math wonks here does it.

But I have to say this, based on my ability to estimate using rough numbers:

The cargurus report (as reported here--I haven't seen the original either) feels to me like it inflates the additional cost of hybrids.

On the other hand,
when I bought my Prius II (Nov. 09--when Prius prices started to go below MSRP around here), it seemed pretty clear to me that given my amount of driving (a bit under 20K miles per year) at anything resembling current gas prices, I could save money by buying a new Corolla. That's not quite apples to apples, but pretty close.

And yet I still bought the Prius. For whyever.

Once Bob (or whoever) does the numbers, I expect they will show that, for most people in this most actual of all possible worlds, hybrids are still a bit more expensive than similar gas-only cars.

 

From Fuel Economy, MPGs:

Prius, 50
Corolla, auto transmission, small engine: 29
w/ larger engine: 24

Annual fuel cost (from above, at 15,000 miles/year).
Prius $816
Corolla, small engine $1408
Corolla, large engine $1632.

Ten year/150,000 mile fuel savings at current gas prices:
Prius versus Corolla, small engine , about $6000.
Prius versus Corolla, large engine, about $8000.

So a base Prius at $22K and a base Corolla with the small engine, at $16K would, all other things equal, have similar lifetime cost. That seems to be in the ballpark of the MSRPs.

Interior volume, passenger/luggage

Prius: 94/22
Corolla: 92/12

Oddly, the Corolla with the larger engine and auto transmission gets no better mileage that many small SUVs: Ford Escape with manual transmission, Honda CR-V, 24 MPG; Chevy Equinox, small engine, 26 MPG.

 

I get so tired of this grade school journalism crap. The Toyota Prius is a great car because it was designed like no other car on the planet, engineered without management meddling, and built with quality parts by people who give a damn about their workmanship. Name any car in this price range that has the features, minmum operating cost, safety systems, and pure functionality that are even close to the Prius. You can't! O by the way, the Prius has the highest customer satisfaction of any practical car in the world, has the lowest cost to operate, and delivers the best fuel economy and emission numbers of any thing in it's class. Toyota did all this because they could, not because the U.S government was willing to give them millions of our dollars to do it with no measurable guarantees of success. I can't wait for the Lexus CT 200h.

 

Total cash outlay for 10 years ownership:

Prius 22K + 816x10 = $30160
Corolla 16K + 1408 x10 = $30080

Total cash outlay for 5 years ownership:

Prius 22K + 816 x 5 = $26080
Corolla 16K + 1408 x5 = $23040

It will take 10 years to break even. For short term ownership, a Corolla is a better buy.

 

This is exactly the argument that I don't buy. Though you see it said often enough.

I assumed (but didn't say) that 150,000 miles was my guess for the useful life of the vehicle.

At the end of five years the Prius should be worth more than the Corolla, if for no other reason than the five years' worth of additional gas savings still left in the remaining service life of the car.

If you sell it, you should get more for it. If you keep it, you have an asset that's worth more, at least because it has lower future operating cost than the alternative.

So cash cost isn't total ownership cost. It's cash cost less remaining asset value = sum of depreciation plus gas expense. At five years, you've spent more cash, but you own a higher-valued asset. So even at five years, I think total cost of ownership ought to be about the same.

Try this example to clarify cash versus total cost: Suppose you have two cars, identical MPG, one will last forever, the other will last 150,000 miles. New, the forever car costs $31,000, the 150,000 mile car costs $30,000. At any mileage (up to 150,000) the forever car always has higher cash cost than the 150,000 mile car. If you wanted a car for 75,000 miles, would you buy the car with the lower cash cost?