Originally Posted by AndyB

Last Friday I met a friend in the Toyota dealer, he bought a Solara rag top 2 weeks ago. We stood admiring his car for a few minutes until he asked what car I owned. Jokingly I said "I went the cheap route and bought a Camry Hybrid". He kinda scoffed and said "cheap, how many years do have to run it to get your money back." We laughed and went our separate ways.
Since buying my TCH in mid April I've had similar conversations with other motorists and I think most are basing their thoughts on ideas they picked up some 10 years ago when Toyota had the foresight to launch the Prius and perhaps it was easy to compare a Prius to a Corolla.
For starters they all assume that the alternative to a Hybrid would have been a base 4 cyl Camry. The truth of the matter is a 4 cyl loaded Camry still comes nowhere near the level of luxury of my B package Hybrid. I cover 30,000 plus miles a year and therefore enjoy a loaded car. My alternative to the Hybrid was the V6 XLE. In Canada the XLE is $2000 more than the B package Hybrid but also in Ontario, Canada I can get a combined rebate of $3500 from both levels of government. So before the first tank of gas has gone I'm up $5500 and about all I'm lacking from the XLE is a rear window sun shade the ability to spin tires all day.

I do have other problems though ... now when was the last time I filled up?