7 Hot Hybrids: Will They Save You Money On Gas? - Investopedia.com When Nissan (OTC: NSANY) announced that it would launch its "Leaf" electric car in the U.S. in 2010, the media was abuzz with renewed interest in a zero-emissions car. In Pictures: Top 10 Green Industries For those who want a greener commute, the most practical existing option is still hybrid vehicles, which combine gas with electric battery power.
Writer is a retard. She isn't exactly comparing apples to apples when she calculates the hybrid "premium" using the cost difference from the base trim.
Everything in the article is plausible, until she compared a prius to a yaris. that's when all credibility went out of the window.
Disregard those numbers. The best of the lot is obviously the cheapest in terms of price and mpg. And that's the Insight. Next would be the Prius, which combines relatively low price and highest mpg. The base Fit with 5 spd was $4K less than the base Insight at my local Honda dealership. Auto Fit would be about $3K less. Ford Fusion is far less cost effective than Prius or Insight, since it is so expensive ($28K or so before rebates) and isn't even as good mpg-wise as the Insight. You have to really watch your step these days on anything written about hybrids. There are too many agendas and special interests out there.
We thought long and hard before buying a Prius over a Carolla. We traded in a 96 Carolla with 168,000 miles on it having no problems. Figuring CU's numbers (44mpg for Prius), it would take 13 years to break even with saved gas money. However, with our third tank of gas, we are up to 51.3 mpg actual. Should break even in year 9. On top of that, the Prius is more comfortable, more roomy and a whole lot more fun to drive. It goes without saying that less depletion of oil was a big part of our decision. Chris
Why didn't she just use a huffy bike compared to a prius, then she could say you would never make your money back on the Prius.
I'm sure it's because the Prius has no sibling non-hybrid to compare against. That would be the fair comparison. Why she picked the Yaris, who knows? I can tell you that the Prius compares favorably with the 2007 Accord EXL-V6 that I had before this (with the exception of acceleration). In fact, considering the tech features on my Prius (solar, nav, bluetooth, etc.), the Prius is superior in most aspects (turning radius being way up there as well).
The proper comparison for the Prius is the Matrix - similar dimensions and so on, with the major difference being the powertrain. The Yaris is NOT a midsize. The Insight isn't exactly either...
Well I used to drive a truck so thats how I compare it. It saves me a helluva lot of money compared to the truck.
Yeah, I suppose I could save a boatload on my electric bill if I lived in an old refrigerator box under a bridge somewhere. Stupid me for living in a house. What an obviously agenda-driven article--this much is given away early on by her mention of buying one as 'a hip accessory.' I'm surprised she didn't trot out the old "hummer is better for the environment" BS long-ago debunked.
I have a 1.8 gen3 prius, my GF has a 1.3 automatic yaris (that's it behind the Prius in the pic). I get 51 ukmpg, she gets 46 ukmpg. No contest.
What is really, really DUMB about this article is that she does the proper comparisons where the model has both hybrid/non-hybrid options, e.g.: the Camry / Civic. Those comparisons are pretty accurate - and suggest that non-optimized hybrids are basically garbage.
