Hybrid Efficiency Overstated?

[Pangloss]

Hybrid Efficiency Overstated?

 

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7BB21CF567-A36C-4EF0-8E64-D8177D37D004%7D&siteid=google&dist=google

 

Interesting article. Note that it's almost a year old, and gas prices are significantly higher now (more than a dollar higher in California than the example in the quote below), but I still think it's interesting.

 

This quote seems particularly on point:

 

Buyers star-struck by the stated fuel-efficiency ratings don't realize that, even at $2-a-gallon gas, it would take 12 years to recoup the cost of a hybrid Civic versus a similarly equipped gas-engine model, Champion said. Based on Consumer Reports results, the annual savings on a Civic hybrid versus a top-of-the-line Civic EX driven 15,000 miles a year is $200 at that pump price. But the hybrid costs about $2,400 more.

 

The 2004 Prius, touted on Toyota's Web site as Motor Trend's Car of the Year, produced 55 miles per gallon in combined city/ highway driving in the EPA tests. The hybrid Civic yielded 47.5 mpg. Consumer Reports found the Prius averaged 44 mpg overall and the Civic got 36 mpg -- about 11 mpg less than the EPA ratings.

 

In the case of the Civic, the hybrid version averaged just 7 mpg more overall than the gas-engine model, a disturbing discovery for cost-conscious buyers who could have purchased a base-model Civic for $6,000 less.

 

I wonder why the EPA's tests are off by a higher percentage with hybrids versus regular cars.

[swansont]

There was a $2000 tax credit at one time for buying a hybrid, which narrows that gap considerably. I don't know if it is still in place.

[Pangloss]

There was a $2000 tax credit at one time for buying a hybrid, which narrows that gap considerably. I don't know if it is still in place.

 

That's interesting.

 

For a long time you could get a massive tax break for buying an SUV, because of some loophole about farm equipment (no really). My brother-in-law bought a Cadillac SUV under that deal. I don't recall the amount but I think it was a lot more than that. But they were talking about closing that loophole last I heard.

[TimeTraveler]

I think its $4,000 and still available, I will have to look that up.

[john5746]

I would like to purchase one of the hybrids. I might do it, but cost of ownership is also a concern. Parts, maintenance, etc. should all be higher. Toyota is the best car company overall, so you can bet on them for reliability.

[Pangloss]

Interesting editorial by Joseph B. White (automobile industry editor) in the Wall Street Journal today (Sunday, 4/11) about hybrids. I'm afraid it's a subscription deal, but here are a couple of interesting quotes:

 

The Prius outsold, in no particular order, the big Chevy Suburban sport utility vehicle, the Ford Expedition large SUV, and Toyota's own big Sequoia SUV, whose sales fell 12.5% last month. All those vehicles easily outsold the Prius a year ago. Domestic large SUVs, as a group, were stacked up on dealer lots at the end of March, with 120 days' supply, according to Autodata Corp.

 

The Prius also outsold other hybrid cars, but lower-volume rivals did well relative to their previous sales. Honda says it sold 2,896 of its hybrid Honda Civics, the third-best month ever for that model, while consumers bought 1,862 hybrid Honda Accords -- the best month yet for that model. Ford said its hybrid SUV, the Ford Escape, had its best month yet with sales of 1,569 vehicles.

 

Taken together, sales of these hybrid vehicles totaled 16,563 vehicles in March -- more than Ford's Lincoln brand or Nissan's Infiniti brand.

 

Mr. Lutz's responses indicate that GM has done an intellectual 180 on the issue of hybrid gas-electric vehicles. Not long ago, GM executives expressed little enthusiasm for hybrid vehicles, and pooh-poohed the Toyota Prius as a money loser that made little contribution to saving fuel and distracted the industry from efforts to build cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

 

Mr. Lutz, who last week took control of GM's vehicle development and engineering strategy world-wide, now acknowledges that "Toyota scored a major coup with hybrids even though they didn't have a business case." Having hybrid vehicles, he said, is now a symbol of whether a car maker is technologically capable and environmentally aware. GM recently announced efforts to mass-produce hybrid gas-electric SUVs by 2007. As for commercially viable fuel-cell cars? Maybe by 2010, Mr. Lutz says.

 

Mr. Lutz's embrace of hybrids comes late, but better late than never, from a GM shareholder point of view. In March, as gasoline prices jumped above $2 a gallon, Toyota more than doubled Prius sales to 10,236 vehicles -- even though dealers had just 13 days' supply of the hybrid cars on the ground by month's end, which is effectively no inventory at all.

[darth tater]

If you buy a car for 25K and drive if 6 years, putting 100 k on the odometer, (these are miles) what would it be worth and on a pr. mile basis, what did that cost you?

 

If say, a 6 year old Monte Carlo with 100 K on the odo is worth 6 K, I would be surprised.

 

Now if you bought the Monte for 25 K and paid cash for it, (as I did for my wife) you should figure what the 25 K would have been worth over those 6 years. I figure that if 25 K yeilds 6% pr. annum, then that 25K would have been about 35 K. Subtract the 6 K that it is still worth and it works out that it cost you 29 K to drive the Monte for 6 years/100K miles.

 

That is 29 cents pr mile.

 

It will cost about 6 K to keep it insured for that time--that is 6 cents pr. mile.

 

Figure you bought 1 set of tires at $500 and with 33 oil changes at $25 a flop which comes to $825 those 2 items comes to about 1.3 cents pr. mile.

 

If we gesstimate about $1000 over the 6 year period for incidental repairs that comes to 1 cent pr. mile.

 

My wife gets 25+ MPG on her Monte so that will be about 4000 gallons of gas and at $2.50 pr gallon, that is 10 cents pr. mile.

 

So added up, over a 6 year/100 K period it will cost me about 47.3 cents a mile for her to drive that car for 6 years--but only 10 cents of that expense is gasoline.

 

I am not at all sure that I would want to spend 50% more for a car just to reduce fuel costs, even if it cut fuel costs in half.