Ok I have a 2007 Prius touring with 48k on it and its a package 3.
I owe nothing and have one year of warranty left.
I can trade it in on a 2012 Volt for and they will give me 12k for my car.
I would be looking at doing a 24 month, 10k lease with nothing at all out of pocket and they would be giving me a check back for the 12k I have in equity.
The lease payment is $264 and its a 43k msrp volt.

I drive 60 miles a day would I come out ahead in enerygy/ fuel costs going to a volt?
Would the amount of lease payments equal the future value of my 07 prius if I kept the car ?

How does the volt drive in snow?

 

I suppose it it depends on how long your commute is. Volt is not great when running on the ICE. Volt is great for short commute. Only my opinion. H

 

I looked at the Leaf, Volt and Prius before deciding on the latter for my in-town car. We have a TCH for long trips.

Your equity means something only if you sell it. If you are not looking to trade in your car so you have a "new" one to drive, the longer you keep it, the more you save because the majority of the depreciation is in the first year or two.

Volt would make a better local car (and Leaf might be better yet). The Volt's problem is that if you truly only drive locally, then you are lugging around lots of useless weight called an engine that still has to be maintained just in case it might be needed. The leaf eliminates the wasted engine and the weight. It's big disadvantage is that it is ONLY useful for local driving so it works best if you have another car or rarely take auto trips and include rental car costs for them.

Neither Volt nor Leaf is inexpensive. You are paying far too much for their gas difference. In a few years possibly their prices will be more reasonable.

When we bought our TCH on 2008, Prii were the "hot car to buy" and the dealer wanted almost as much for it as the TCH. A few months ago, I got a great deal on the Prius as their discount was so much better. They are run-of-the-mill now, not the "buy at any ridiculous price" anymore.

The sensible thing is to stick with the Prius and ignore dealer hype. However, if you want to be "cool", pick the Leaf or Volt depending on your need for that occasional trip and your willingness and ability to spend for "fun".

 

Electricity is not free. The Volt only gets marginally better fuel efficiency than a carefully driven Prius after you do the math. And when it comes to reliability, Toyota can't be beat.

 

moved to volt section since there are a lot of misinformation from prius fan boys, lol.

 

You drive 60 miles a day and the lease only allows 10K mi/year? Assuming you only drive on weekdays, you'll still be driving 15K mi/year, and at the end of the two year lease you'll have driven 30K miles, but the lease only allows 20K miles. You'll owe an extra mileage charge for the extra 10K miles. How much will that cost?

If you take the trade, at the end of two years you'll have:

1. The enjoyment of driving the Volt for two years.
2. About $5K left of the $12K, after paying the lease payments.
3. A charge for the extra miles. For example, if it is $0.25/mile, then you'd owe $2.5K
4. A savings of perhaps $300 in fuel, depending on gas and electricity costs (according to fueleconomy.gov).
5. The need to buy another car now that the lease is up.

In the end, you've traded the ownership in the Prius for a couple of years of driving the Volt, plus a little cash. Is it worth it? That's up to you, but I wouldn't do it unless I knew what the extra mileage charges were, and I had a plan to replace the Volt in two years.

 

you get the tax credit as well? why the need to replace the volt in two years? the battery of volt as well as other hybrids are rated up to 300k miles.

 

I agree with freefiber on the details of the leasing arrangement. If you're doing 60 mi/day, you would want a 12K or 15K lease.

As for whether or not you'd come out ahead with the Volt vs the Prius, that depends on a number of things.

1) Is the 60 miles contiguous or are there time gaps where the car will be sitting (charging?)
2) What will your charging situation be? 110? 240?

We've had my wife's Volt since March 2012 and it is over-achieving expectations based on those two points. I forecast costs based on her first 35 miles per day being electric. Fact is, it's much more than that because of her driving pattern. Our first refueling was at 8,920 miles.

Because she makes several 10-15 mile trips throughout the course of a day AND because we have a 240V line in the garage, she's able to make trips, come home, plug in, make more trips, plug in...... Averaging over 40 miles per day, but often going 6 weeks without engine turning on. The engine turns on in "engine maintenance mode" if it has not been used in 6-weeks. It runs for a couple minutes, uses 0.10 gallons of gas, then shuts off.

 

Very good insight by actual Volt user. Also another reason to run the engine once in awhile is that gas is unstable. It breaks down over time to the point it's useless so something to think about.

 

Mine has had to go in twice for the door lock dieing.


AS far as my 2016 Volt vs the 2012 Prius C it is no competition.

The Volt is the winner by far.

My drive was 52 miles a day and I generally did that on EV only.

A drove from LA to Vegas on full charge, full tank only took 5.5 gal to fill once there.

I have 10k miles on it and only 5 fill ups (it is almost empty now)

http://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/...pey5007/423495