It is nice that Edmunds has done us the courtesy of providing these numbers, however I'm most interested in the logic behind their conclusion. What are they assuming? How are they makeing these computations?

• How many miles in the life of the vehicle?
• How many years will it be driven?
• What estimate are they using for LOF service cost?
• How many oil changes are they doing (of course, indexed to miles driven)?
• How much are they estimating those oil changes to be?
• Other maintenance: scheduled items in addition to oil changes, brakes, tires?
• What about insurance costs?

So, I'm skeptical about their numbers. I don't know enough about how they generated those numbers to believe them just yet. Edmunds' editors and contributors haven't been the hybrid's best champion or even a fair evaluator. I guess it colors my judgment of them as a source.

I'm going to suppose here that they are including some ridiculous estimate of battery replacement cost and they are going to estimate its replacement way too early in the car's life. They may also be underestimating the cost of gas, or not even trying to index it for inflation or market forces. Maybe their model isn't sophisticated enough to do that. However, nearly every other model I have seen which takes into account Prius TCO on a constant set of external factors proves that over the long haul the cars are competitive with what is typically used in government fleets if not better than competitive.

One other thing, I don't see too many government fleets around here purchasing any of the cars above, except for Prii. Our government fleets are filled with Taruses, Impalas, and other more traditional mid-sized vehicles. Nearly all of them are V-6s. Nearly all of them aren't built well enough for the service they are expected to do. Pretty much the only car out there that can handle rough service is the Crown Victoria and that is because it is a glorified F-150.

I hear you. And I agree. I'm tired of government waste too. But a good fleet manager should make their own nubmers. Why should they? They know when they liquidate older vehicles. They know the average number of miles driven per year. They know how much fuel they consume and they know how hard the vehicles are driven. They also know the weak points in the cars they buy. They know what it costs to go through a tranny on a car with 60k miles and the impact it has on their bottom line. If a fleet manager isn't re-evaluating their operations and their cost structure, which is almost entirely dictated by the vehicles of their fleet, they should probably find a new job.

In the end Edmund's numbers may be correct, however without knowing the logic they are using to achieve them, I'm stuck being a skeptic. As for my own experience. The Prius is a downright cheap car to drive. I have less frequent oil changes, less frequent fill ups and less fuel consumed per fill-up.

It has been said:
Hybrid drivers come in 3 flavors, greenie, techie and cheapie. Pick any 2.
2005 Prius, Melinium Silver over gray, package 5 (AI)