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Just One Out of 16 Hybrids Pays Back In Gas Savings
thecarchik writes with this snippet from GreenCarReports:
"One of the criticisms of hybrid cars has historically been that there's no payback, especially given the cheap gasoline prices in the US. The extra money you spend on a hybrid isn't returned in gas savings, say critics. Well, that may be true, especially when regular gasoline is averaging $2.77 a gallon this week. But as we often point out, most people don't buy hybrids for payback — they buy them to make a statement about wanting to drive green. Nevertheless, a Canadian study has now looked at the question of hybrid payback in a country whose gasoline is more expensive than ours (roughly $3.70 per gallon this week), with surprising results. The British Columbia Automobile Association projected the fuel costs of 16 hybrids over five years against their purchase price and financing fees. In a study released in late July, only a single one of the 16 hybrids cost less to buy and run than its gasoline counterpart."
The one car that would save you money, according the study, is the Mercedes S400 Hybrid sedan — and it will only cost you $105,000.
That's how the market is supposed to work.
Ideally, the invisible hand of the market would price the hybrid vehicles higher than their non-hybrid counterparts, to such a degree that the hybrid's price discounts the future value of the gasoline saved over the vehicle's lifetime. If the market didn't do this, an arbitrage opportunity would exist... and arbitrageurs would act upon it, which would have the effect of raising the price of the hybrids anyway.
Obviously this will never work out perfectly outside of academia, but if you had a crystal ball and all future prices were knowable by all parties in the present, this is how the pricing would work out, all other variables held constant.
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
The one car that would save you money, according the study, is the Mercedes S400 Hybrid sedan — and it will only cost you $105,000.
The retail price of that car seems to be ~$80k. The given figure includes gasoline costs over time.
Not if you buy a used hybrid.
Well here in the UK my local garage is selling petrol/gasoline at 1.20 GBP / litre, there are 3.79 litres to 1 US gallon = 4.55 GBP / gallon, x 1.45 (pounds to dollars) so we're at $6.60 /US gallon. You can probably find it for 1.17, a few pennies cheaper, but probably it's around the 1.20 mark give or take a tiny bit across the country. Rest of Europe probably similar.
So quite a difference from the 2.77 you pay in the USA and so hybrids perhaps more economically viable here.
So the time frame is only over 5 years? Cars can and do last longer than that. Also the comparisons are against the non-hybrid equivalent (Camry Hybrid v Camry, Fusion Hybrid v Fusion). What did they compare the Prius to since it does not have a conventional equivalent?
The hybrids only cost more if you ignore the externalities. That is, if you conveniently ignore the cost of our climate warming up, and the cost in blood and treasure of maintaining access to oil, then sure, the hybrid costs more. Bicycles are even cheaper, if you ignore the cost of your time and of becoming a smear on the expressway. How about hitchhiking?.
...and destruction....environmentalists always forget that at some point all those batteries need to be disposed of somewhere.
Well, it usually takes over 100,000 miles to break even, so the study, which only considers 5 years, is fairly useless. On a thread last week, someone calculated that a Prius will take 320,000 miles to to break even (and I checked the math, as we all like to do!). And the average Prius will last longer than 5 years - especially since those with a "greener" lifestyle know how bad buying a new car is for the environment.
I'd imagine about half of the cars pay back the owner in fuel costs. And it's obviously variable as gas prices are fairly volatile lately...
Think of today's Hybrids as the equivalent of the first iPod. "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." It's the 3rd and 4th gen of these vehicles that will blow everything else out off the road, in a matter of speaking.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Look, is it so hard to believe that someone would buy a hybrid to make a statement not to others, but to the car manufacturers making these products? I own a Honda Civic hybrid. It's not much to look at and it certainly doesn't turn heads. On the other hand, I bought it new from a Honda dealer in California when they were trying to push a lot more expensive cars on me. Why? Because I want Honda to know that I'd rather be green than cool or hip or whatever. I want Honda to know that it's important to ME so in the future they'll make cars better-suited to ME.
From one of the linked articles, "Translation: The kinds of people who buy Toyota Prius hybrids in the U.S. may indulge themselves in private, where no one else will see them, but want to be seen in public with less luxurious, greener products to bolster their reputation."
I call bullshit. I didn't do it to bolster my reputation. I put my money where my mouth is and instead of getting on a soapbox and telling everyone to go out and buy a hybrid, I actually bought one.
I don't care that I probably spent more than I'll recoup from the fuel-efficiency. For me, it wasn't about that.
Gotta get me one of these!
They have flawed comparisons in their "hybrid-only" cars.
They compare the Prius to the slightly smaller and noticeably less well appointed Matrix XR. The Prius has a unique spot in Toyota's lineup, falling between the Corolla and Camry. The Matrix may be closest - being basically a Corolla wagon, but it is still smaller. The $1700-over-5-years buys you more than a $1700 upgrade in car size and appointment.
Same with the Honda Civic DX-G vs. Insight. The Civic is a smaller, less well appointed vehicle, the upgrade to an Insight is more than worth the $1200-over-5-years difference.
Not to mention they quote some of the hybrids at higher-than-base packages, while the conventional equivalents are base. (Or they compare versions that have higher-than-base stock to the base conventional, such as all the Lexus models - which all come at higher-than-base packages compared to their non-hybrid equivalents. The LS coming at 'fully loaded' as the only choice on the hybrid.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
From what I understand, nickel (used in Prius batteries) mining is much more polluting than burning hydrocarbons. (Which the Prius still does occasionally)
There is more to enviromental impact than what comes out of the tailpipe...
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
The actual numbers are quite interesting. The study seems to be doing a decent job of adjusting for other aspects of car quality and features. To do this, they directly compare hybrid and non-hybrid versions of various cars, or very similar cars by the same manufacturer when this is not possible.
What's interesting, to me at least, is how small the "hybrid loss" actually is for many of the popular models. The extra cost to buy and operate a Toyota Prius, over the Toyota Matrix XR, is apparently $1,718 over 5 years, or $343/year. This isn't that much to a person who cares about the environment. Consider, for instance, that this will apparently reduct CO2 emissions by 1242 kg/year. This means that it "costs" the environmentally-conscious consumer about 28 cents per kg of CO2 reduced. Doesn't sound too bad.
Also worth noting is that the vehicle costs were apparently based on MSRP. Thus any incentive program (e.g. government rebates) only have to be on the order of a few thousand dollars to make the hybrid cheaper overall. I would, personally, prefer it if the hybrid technology were cheaper no matter what (so that there was no excuse not to buy one), but the fact that the extra cost is so small makes it fairly reasonable to subsidize it in the name of environmental protection. (Or, conversely, taxing more-polluting vehicles or energy sources for the externality of environmental damage they cause.)
Again, I think it's well-known that it's generally cheaper to do environmental damage, and more costly to protect the environment. But I see these numbers as being very encouraging: the technology is now at a point where the extra cost of hybrid technology can be made quite small. (For instance it's only $290 extra over 5-years to own and operate the Honda Civic Hybrid vs. the Honda Civic EX. That shows how close we are to hybrid vehicles being cost competitive with conventional vehicles, even without government rebates.)
My civic hybrid cost $4000 more than the non-hybrid version. I figured I would have to put about 100,000 miles on it to reach break-even, even with $3/gallon gas. However, I now have over 120,000 miles on it, so it is now actually saving me money. (There have not yet been any additional maintenance expenses because if it being a hybrid, but the IMA light on the dash is now on all the time.) Of coarse buying fuel-efficiency now partially protects you from future volatility in the fuel markets -- I'd be willing to pay extra for a true multi-fueler if one was available.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
There are definitely folks out there who can afford to buy a hybrid without concern of gas savings, but most people are going to buy a vehicle that is within their financial means so the upfront cost has to face the reality of cost of ownership. I was one of those people who put enough miles on their car to warrant a hybrid. I did the math and it was cheaper to buy a brand new Prius than continue driving my paid off SUV, due to ongoing maintenance and fuel costs. Several years later, I opted to trade the Prius in for a "clean diesel" that delivers nearly the same MPG but with more comfort and space than the Prius offered. It costs me a bit more overall but due to my changing needs and cramped legroom I think its worth it. Environmentally speaking, I like having a vehicle that pollutes less, but I can't afford not to drive something as fuel efficient which is ultimately why I bought one.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
There's a reason that gas cars are cheaper. The oil companies are not stupid. They know the price point at which alternative fuels become competitive with gas and they keep the price a little below that. The price of oil is not high enough for anything else to compete....and it'll stay that way barring government interference. It's good for oil companies, they're rolling in the dough. It's good for consumers, gas is cheap and plentiful. It's good for politicians, their voters are happy with them. When glitches happen to the fuel supply and price drives high then all sorts of alternative power supply comes out of the woodwork. The price never stays high for long though. No one wants expensive fuel.
Most hybrids are only a couple of years old, and will be on the road for at least another decade. At the moment, my Prius is an environmental statement and a fun engineering toy, but beginning around 2012-2013, I expect it to start looking like a very good investment.
As with all economics related to energy, we're not factoring any of the environmental costs in. So a hybrid might cost more, or it might be saving thousands of dollars. Without factoring in things like pollution, and destructive weather caused by climate change it's really hard to know.
I'm not in the least interested in buying a hybrid. I want an all-electric car. I want a normal-size car that can do 80 mph uphill, and has at least 300 miles of range at typical highway speeds. Get the price under 50g, and I'll buy it. With any luck it'd become a family heirloom. The only dealings I want with petroleum are for lubrication and manufacture of the plastic parts.
I'd love to buy a Tesla, but it's just too small, and let's face it, a wee bit on the expensive side.
Too bad EEStor turned out to be a bust... ultracapacitors could solve this whole battery mess pretty easily if they just had adequate energy capacities. Everyone else is in the "discovery" phase, which usually translates to "impractical." Not that manipulating a (very) high voltage energy source for use in low voltage, high current motors is all that easy anyway. That whole (E = CVV/2) thing is a cast-iron bitch on a number of fronts.
Oh, well.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But those use a lot of fuel!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yeah, it was funny, when the 2004 Prius first came out, I thought "Man, that thing's just a design ripoff from the Honda Insight, made bigger!"
How when I see the new Insight, I think just the opposite "Man, that thing's such a ripoff from the Prius, only smaller."
If the original Insight had a disablable passenger-side airbag, I would have bought one in 2006 (its last year.) But I had a small child at the time, so no airbags allowed in front of the carseat. Now that she's older, I'm tempted to get a used one.
(Doesn't it feel funny to call 45 MPG "terrible"? I find it funny when I catch myself feeling "guilty" for getting "only" 45 MPG sometimes.)
And I wouldn't say the Prius has "great EV only range", it's about 2 miles at best. (As soon as my warranty expires, I'll be converting mine to a plug-in to get about 10 miles.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
It says the Ford Escape Hybrid costs $35k?
My wife bought her brand new 2007 Ford Escape Hybrid in Dec. 2006 for $24K. The non-hybrid model was about $20K. She averages about 32 MPG in it, about 12 MPG over the conventional model.
At 22,000 miles/year, she saves about $1144/year at $2.77/gal. Plus we got the $1500 tax break. The "hybrid premium" was paid off sometime in late 2008. She now saves over $1100/year over the non-hybrid.
I want to see some methodology on this study.
I used Edmunds Cost of ownership list.
At my office everyone was trying to out-hybrid each other, and talking about all the money they would save. At 5 dollars a gallon it really seemed worth it to them to buy brand new hybrids.
I showed that at 10 dollars a gallon the civic hybrid finally paid for itself in the typical 5 year ownership term over the non-hybrid, nothing else even came close until you modeled gas at 11 dollars a gallon.
For kicks I modeled a 1976 Chevy Monte Carlo - a Giant Gas-wasting monster of a 2-seater. And showed that assuming you needed 150/month for ongoing maintenance, You could buy another one each year, fill it with 5 dollar gas all year, then set it on fire, using 10 gallons of gasoline before buying a new one... and it would still be significantly cheaper to own than a prius.
I get it, it's about conspicuous conservation. But Faux Green is pretty played out.
Diesel is NOT greener. The only reason it's thought of as greener is because of the lower carbon (CO2) emissions due to lower consumption. That part is greener. Diesel does however produce NOx, which reacts with water and produces Nitric Acid, which is very bad for the environment and hurts the respiratory organs. Diesel engines produce 24 times the NOx of petrol engines.
If you want to go "green" and still drive a car the best option at the moment is a CNG-car. CNG is Compressed Natural Gas. You can get it as a fossil fuel which is bad for the environment, but better than ANY of the other alternatives, or you can produce bio-methane from human waste which reduces the CO2 emissions with about 95%. A recent paper by scientists at Lund University pushes that up to 120%.
It's easy to convert a "normal" car to a CNG-car, although the ones built as CNG-cars have better efficiency.
These are the "greenest" cars you can get at the moment. Hybrids are nice, but they're not really green, and Diesel I'd classify as "red" (or whatever the opposite of green is).
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
icta is a nutty organization. From their mission statement:
"Using legal petitions, comments, and litigation ICTA is at the forefront of the battles to limit genetic engineering, end the patenting of life, address greenhouse gas emissions, protect animals from abuse in research and agriculture, and halt deforestation. "
Effectively, they're against the use of fossil fuel, therefore, they will demonstrate they really cost lot more than you think.
I'd rather just burn petrol with the proven exhaust filters
BS alert! Please provide proof that there exist 'filters' that can stop CO2 from being produced from an ICE that can scale to billions of vehicles.
Changing the cars is the first step. Once cars are electric, changing the power supply is easy in comparison to trying to 'clean' up billions of mobile emission points.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Yes - I rented a Prius for a couple of weeks while I was between cars, and liked it quite a bit, so much that I looked fairly earnestly for a used one. Unfortunately there were very few used Priuses available, and they were about twice my budget.
Overall I was surprised by how comfortable and roomy the car was, and how well it went on the freeway - I often see Priuses putting along in the slow lane, and assumed that they were gutless. I was wrong - they step out OK, and they can keep up on the freeway just fine. I think the snazzy dashboard display showing the moment-to-moment fuel consumption changes the driver's 'race' motive from speed to economy - it's a challenge to try to get the average up from 44 to 45, then to 46, ... So I think this feature by itself would have a good effect on most driver's habits.
The one thing I didn't like in the car was that the seats are too short front to back for my long legs. I always felt like I was falling out.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Nickel isn't polluting, it just sits there. Presumably you mean the production of a few hundred pounds of NiMH batteries, containing (if I recall correctly) about 20 pounds of nickel. Note that the chrome and steel in a regular car already contains nickel, and that the real toxic villain is the lead-ACID battery in a conventional car
So what makes you think the pollution from manufacturing a few hundred pounds of recyclable batteries is remotely comparable to the TONS of gasoline and CO2 saved over 100,000 miles by driving a more fuel-efficient car? Repeating crap you've heard doesn't make it true.
=S