Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

They retracted their statement. Nice try :)

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...l/14041566.htm

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Wrong. THIS one is based on Depreciation and is new as of today (March 8, 2006: 2:08 PM EST)

Nice try :)

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

This clearly says that hybrids will most probably depreciate less than non-hybrids. Didn't read anything else but the headline?

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Ohhhhhh K. Sure, no one wants a hybrid. SUV's are the hot thing. (sarcasm intended) I saw a very nice full size Tahoe the other day for a whooping $2500. Soo, I suppose I'll "save gas - lose money" instead of lose gas AND money in an SUV.

I know there is always the alternate option of the normal gas vehicles that get "good" mileage. That might be what I do next time, but I doubt it. I'll be a repeat hybrid buyer.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

They both appear to say the same thing. Revised if you will.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

All I did was link to an article on CNN based on consumer reports, no commentary so how would that effect ones credibility? Infact, the attempts to attack my credibility instead of the points brought forth in the article hurt yours. Have a nice day :)

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Well all I have to say is, look at what a used 00-05 prius is going for.. They aren't depreciating much. ;)

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Key words "...according to the magazine." And all they are doing is estimating. Go get some real world figures. I saw an '04 Prius with 47,000 miles on it selling for $600 less than I bought my '05 for new. Assuming it sold for that price it means it lost 1.2 cents per mile. Obviously that won't hold up as supply increases, but project that over 100K miles and that brings the sellable price down by $1276! Not a whole lot of depreciation going on there..... yet.

I see no reason to believe that hybrids will ever depreciate *more* than non-hybrids. At the same pace, maybe (not in the short-term), but depreciate faster? Makes me wonder who's putting pressure on resources like CR to publish that.

If being on a mission to discredit hybrids because you got a lemon made sense, then cars would have never caught on at all. As far as I know, lemons exist in every *non*-hybrid car out there as well, no matter how highly regarded.

Rick

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Haven't we been here before?

One of the advantages of being a geezer is you remember how history seems to repeat itself. When the first energy crisis happened the Honda Civics with 50,000 miles on them went for almost what they cost new. That was partly due to the fact the Civics got more expensive every year. However it was mostly a cult thing that kept the value up.

I am interested in seeing the resale value of hybrids when people have to start buying replacement batteries.

I doubt you will ever see many accountants driving Hybrids

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

It's amazing how you can pick and choose data to support whatever viewpoint you want to push, and I keep seeing the same recurring tactics:

A Prius is the hybridized corrolla? Have you ever driven a corrolla, believe me its not the same thing! Tactic one is to compare hybrids to cheap 4-cylinder economy cars which still get fair MPG at the expense of hp and space. apples and oranges.

Tactic two, when in doubt, do the math using the performance/luxury hybrids! They cost a more but don't have a big MPG gain. Just wait until the yukon and silverado hybrids get released: Of the ten hybrids we tested, half of them didn't save any gas at all...

I'm seeing these patterns emerge in most of these anti-hybrid articles. Although I'll admit, using some imaginary estimated depreciation value is a new one.

To ender21's point, why are they trying to push this viewpoint with cherry picked data, is there some external influence?

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It seems like they mostly went for the upscale hybrids just like Obi Wan said. I may actually consider a FEH in my future. You never know. I haven't checked but maybe I'll get a one year old one for half the price of a new one.

"Hondasucks", since you joined I haven't seen too many positive posts out of you and most of the threads you have "contributed" to have been locked. I see a trend growing here. Just as I said before, a few little positive words every so often helps one's credibility. I bit my tongue before on all your other posts, today I decided to call you out. I know you're angry, heck your screen name states that. You should have a ton of info about hybrids and I would think your website had credibilty if you had positive things to say instead of always trolling for some to picka fight with. I won't say anything more about it though. I know you have it in you to say some positive words about hybrids.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

I'm still trying to get a handle on this hybrid vehicle depreciation thing. Usually consider the classic Prius, but this time I compared 2004 Prius to the base model Camry LE. Added automatic transmission and ABS to the Camry, and rear wiper to the Prius. Internetautoguides.com says they started out at the same MSRP, $20175. For used values I averaged Edmunds, KBB, and NADA with 24k miles on each car. Camry depreciation was $4620, and the Prius a *negative* $1323. My conclusion is that the Prius driver is almost $6000 ahead. Hope the Camry owner got a good deal off the list price.

DAS

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Im sorry to say but I didn't write this report, I simply posted the article and used the exact same heading they used. Im actually not posting to pick a fight. All i want to do is share the other side of the coin with people who are viewing this site and considering a hybrid purchase. The information I post is what I wish I had read or have been exposed to before making a decision for a hybrid. You can say "You have no credibitlty for posting negative articles" But i can flip that around and say the vast majority here have no credibilty for posting only positive since the majority don't have enough millage on their car to make the proper assesment. Personally i know that is not true and people are posting based on their experience and so am I.

Now lets get back on topic here and I will post MY OPINION since im being attacked and have yet to share it LoL


Right now the Hybrid hammer is hot, so at the moment i don't think the depreciation is bad, but in a few years it will be... There is only so many years of good will battery replacements that the manufacters are going to loose money on, and once that time comes to pass and people have to shell out thousands for new packs, you will see the resale value of used hybrids go to hell in a handbag.

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I don't hold much faith in "The magazines" these days. When was the last time you read that many of these owners are getting MPG's into the 50's and 60's, and even a few 70's?

I researched the depreciation of my own 2004 HCH with a comparable EX @ 60K miles last year.

According to Kelly Blue Book the EX depreciated much faster and was worth considerably less than the HCH.
I don't have time at the present but if someone wishes I could post some numbers later.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

I was calling it how I saw it and just voicing what I am sure more than a few have thought. Back on topic now though, I'm zipped ;)

I know my Insight will soon have it's share of problems and I am curious to see how my local Honda dealer will handle it since I do not and WILL NOT use them for minor or midlevel MX or even oil changes. I have a feeling they will not want to help me when the time comes. We'll see.

That being said, I think that IF I shall ever have to actually pay for a battery pack in say....my HCH... the prices will have dropped because there are more of them being sold. A good example, not batteries but I can remember paying $300 for a whooping 4MB of RAM for my computer back in the early 90's. Now, people will literally give you their old 128MB when they upgrade. Hybrids are becoming mainstream enough that the batteries and other parts will drop drastically in price in the somewhat near future.

The price of packs will go down and the battery life longevity will go up. Just my opinion though, guess I'm an optimist.

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Here's what I banged out a few days ago .

Looking at Kelly Blue Book I compared Suggested Retail Value for a 2003 HCH and HC EX, each with comparable options and 45,000 miles.

The Hybrid was $19,855 and the EX $16,080, Difference of $3775.

Now we are back to the the question of difference in purchase price of each. Are hybrids going close to or above MSRP, and are EXs going for a lot less than MSRP? Vincentric thinks so to the tune of $4101 more for the hybrid.

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Please don't take this personal but you probably sound like people in the early part of the 20th century when the automobile was coming out. I can hear what people then might have said. "what you have to fill it with gasoline and keep oil in it. To top it off it will cost me over a years pay for it and that darn engine what will it cost to rebuild it? My horse I just have to feed it, and he'll last another 12 years."Then again if people way back were like yourself, even the wheel wouldn't have been invented! kevin

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Back in 1999 I paid close to $800 bucks for a stick of 128mb SODIMM PC133 for my sony vaio laptop lol :)

The problem is we are not talking about a standard size battery for all hybrids. You cannot take a HCH2 and plug and play it in a HCH1 or honda insight. Therefor although the costs to manufacter the latests hybrids may drop, it most likley wont effect the older ones like your HCH. And as new, different hybrids are built, the cycle will likley continue. Not to mention NMHD have a shelf life, so mass over-production wont be a solution either. Also, although the idea of "Hybrid" may be considered new technololgy, NMHD batteries are not and really we shouldnt be waiting for prices to drop since this tech has been in high use for a long time already.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

In your signature it shows you own a 2004 Hond Civic hybrid. I own a 2001 honda Insight purchased in May of 2001. If anything it was people like me who TOOK THE CHANCE years ago who paved the way for people like you to buy your second gen hybrid vehicle. Im not speaking from ignorance, im speaking from experience so no offense taken :)

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

I was taking that into account. I think even the 1st Gen packs will drop, especially the 1st gen HCH and Prius - I know the '03-'05 production was somewhere at 70k+ for the HCH. As far as the Insight, production has been far less over the last 6 years but it's the technology IMO. I'm not saying all packs will be $900. Then again their always the possibilty of "rebuilt" packs. Old case, new innards - I honestly don't know enough about the technology to know if it's possible. It's a business someone (more than one) will sure enough capitolize on though. There's enough hybrids out there to make it a competitive busness, competition means lower prices.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

I totaled my 2002 Prius in Jan.:cry:. I paid 23k for it back in Feb. 02, the insurance gave me $17.5k because I had a $1k deductable I didn't get $18.5k. I put just under 70k miles on the car, so if my math is correct I spent all most $7k to drive that car for 4 years so thats about 10 cents a mile.

I didn't figure in the oil changes, and I didn't have anything machanical go wrong.

I ordered an 06 Prius to replace the 02:) should pick it up the last week of March.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

I think Hondasucks provides a service. Sometimes this site is overly pro-hybrid and might get people's hopes up so high that they might be dissapointed. Of course I love my hybrid but that does not mean hybrids are for everyone. The battery issue is real in spite of the tendancy to gloss over it and point to the great IMA/HSD warranty. Perhaps new car buyers should not worry about such things but battery life is a concern for used car buyers.

People ask me what kind of mpg I get all the time. I tell em that I get 61mpg but that if they got a hybrid (Civic or Prius) and drove normally they would get mid to high forties. No since fostering unrealistic expections.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

We need to be careful.

Depreciation is the expensing of a capital expense over time.
Thus, if two assets perform the same function, the one that costs more has more depreciation.

The REAL test, is the real world value of the resource when the depreciation is done.

The asset that costs more, should have a higher real world value at the end of the depreciation schedule. Yes?

Currently, used hyrids that are on the open market have a higher purchase cost than the cars they compete with, because the demand is so high for hybrids. While this is not a predictor of what will happen with our cars when our three, four and five year loan payments are ending, I content that our crystal ball is just as good as theirs.

The bottom line: there is a lot of specuating on the value of the car at the end of the payment schedule. IF YOU AREN'T going to SELL the car then, and run it until it becomes a maintenance headache, the depreciate argument is a non-issue.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

There have been numerous hybrid reviews with lead-footed and uneducated writers that blame the hybrid for their bad driving. So far, the best way to evaluate hybrids is to ask on hybrid forums. Not everybody hypermiles, etc....the experiences have been largely positive.

I'm convinced that someone lurking for information would conclude hybrids are reliable and save money over the long term. The few bad experiences in many instances are like non-hybrid vehicles - lemons or misused cars.

In statistics and polling, the bigger sample - the more confident of your findings.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

Depreciation for the classic model Prius has been similar to the most reliable and desired small cars. Edmunds, Kelly Blue Book, and NADA web sites provide the data. I also watch the ebay sales, which showed a novel "value spike" with the increase in gasoline prices late last year. Depreciation for the new model Prius has been approximately nil so far. I guess that it will start looking more like the classic, when the next model appears.

Fuel costs are less. How much less depends on what vehicle one compares. In any case it seems like a good hedge if fuel prices increase in the future.

All mechanical problems get closely examined, discussed, and effectively magnified in the internet groups, even though they seem to be few in number. Meanwhile the other, trouble-free hybrids just roll on. So it is hard to discern how the maint costs will stack up, but personally I would be very surprised if they do not turn out to be less than conventional cars, as a group.

However, with depreciation and fuel costs working in hybrids' favor, they will be financially competitive with conventional cars over quite a range of maintenance scenarios. If published articles come to different conclusions, I might wonder at their research, math skills, and motivtions, but will support freedom of expression.

DAS

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

To be fair the testers that are leadfoots were also leadfoots on other vehicles so the FE comparisons are accurate for what they are. Most drivers of hybrids and non are leadfoots relative to many here. I've only driven a HCH and I suspect lots of owners do have it to the floor all the time.

It could be enlightening to take drivers on this forum and test gas only vehicles for FE. I suspect we'd get much better than the reviewers. I'm atypical of Tacoma drivers, I beat EPA 22/27 handily.

Re: Hybrids: Save Gas, Loose money
 

What bugs me are the write-ups that say HCH gets mid 30's MPG by their professional drivers. It is easy to take that as face value by the unresearched and wonder if they could even get the crummy results as the article's paid drivers.
I'm not so sure.
Can anybody find anywhere in any printed publication anywhere that many people are getting 50's, 60's and even 70's MPG out of these machines?
If not, then why?
Why do they only print negative, and even make things up along the way?
(Low MPG, $7K batteries, $10K premium, false maintenance issues and whatever they can think of at the time.....like HV cables running through hybrid doors and roof that can electrocute rescue personnel)
If I were to see an article how some hybrid owners get electrocuted by worn plugin cables it wouldn't "shock" me.

The reward for good sensible driving is much greater in the hybrid.

The MPG spread is much wider for hybrid cars, at least for my HCH.
I could drive it hard and get low 30's, or stretch it out to almost 70MPG.
A 40MPG "spread" if you will.
Regarding our Grand Caravan I can drive it hard and get 15MPG or stretch it for about 28MPG.
A 13MPG spread.
Drive a Camry like a crazed person and get 19MPG.
Drive for economy and get 36MPG.
Drive a Prius with heavy foot and get 30.
Drive carefully and get 60's or even 70.

But don't expect to see that comparison in any magazine article.

The topic of Save Gas, Loose money isn't an issue in many of our cases.
To the lead footed person it very well be as the battery is more heavily used.
In cases like myself where we drive for efficiency it is used much less.
I hope to drive my HCH for +300K miles so surely the battery is a concern.
I just had my maintenance done and asked the dealer to analize and check my battery capacity. I was glad to know my battery measured at least 95%.

60,000 Miles with an excellent battery and no recals to date. Doing pretty good.

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I know this is going off topic to the original post, But how did the dealer determin the battery capacity????? Because my batteries has been dieing for over a year and Honda COULD NOT diagnosis it, and there are alot of other insight owners who have the same problem. Lucky for me a few weeks ago the ima light went off. But the notion of being able to truley determin the capacity of the battery tweaks my interest

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Voltage. Charge the battery until it's "full", then put a tester across a battery's terminals and measure. For example:

a 12V starter battery

100% - 12.7V
90% - 12.6V
80% - 12.5V
...
10% - 11.6%
0% - <11.6%

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Sorry, not the 12v, The battery pack was what i thought he was refering too (Im talking about the NMHD)

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That was just an example. Just trying to show that at a certain voltage (11.6V for a lead acid battery) it is considered drained or incapable of holding a charge. You can do the same thing with the NiMH pack. Your voltages will be different of course, but you can still get an idea of capacity.

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As some here know I am in the business. I sold the first Gen1 in our area in 2001 and possibly the first or one of the first Gen2's as well. Last Nov, after a 100 sales or so, I also put my money where my mouth was and traded a 2000 Camry for a 2005 Prius.

Depreciation. It is related to one thing only. The current auction values in a given region. The auction values depend on geography, population and supply. In WY and MT there is little demand or interest in hybrids. In SoCal, DC, NE there is a massive demand. The best way to evaluate depreciation is look at a purely impartial source like the Mannheim Auction summary for a given vehicle with certain miles, age, equipment and condition. If you owned a 2001 Gen1 Prius w/ 75K mi on it right now and wanted cash for it right now you'd get about $8000 at auction. It originally cost about $21500. This is the true market value of such a vehicle as of today on the EC. Your depreciation is $13500 over 5 years.

This is the easiest thing for anyone to do who is in the auto business. Why CR didn't use this to verify their numbers is beyond me.


Oh, btw, a 2001 Camry LE with similar miles, equipment, etc ( which also sold for ~$20000 in that year ) is now worth about $6800 or ~ $13200 depreciation.

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Hi Bob,
I see Mannheim is open only to dealers. Are there dealers who for a modest fee will work Mannheim for an individual?

For example, I perfer used cars to minimize the first year depreciation loss. We might be interested in a second hybrid next year and would be happy to travel to WY or MT or any other state that has a good deal on a hybrid.

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

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Bob,

My wife was born and raised in Lancaster County, PA - about 10 minutes from Manheim, PA (where their first auction is - I think they now own auctions all over the country). So with those connections you'd figure she would know somebody who would have access to the auctions on a "personal" level. Well - no such luck. That said - there are a number of small car dealers around the auctions that will act as "buyers representative" at the auctions and buy for cars for you. My mom actually used one last year - but she got pretty much a lemon of a car and was stuck with it (as she signed a contract telling them what to buy and in what condition - apparently the condition part is "in the eye of the beholder"). I think she paid like $750 or something above what the auction price was. Good luck in your search.

Eric

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As Eric says at an auction there is a lot of 'caveat emptor'. If you do know someone in the business who will buy you something from auction then you can get it at a good deal. but..

You must transport it to your location/home;
Pay to have it inspected;
Fix any inspection failures;
Replace any normal wear items; ( brakes, tires, blades, lights, glass, etc )
Pay the auctioneer fee;
Take all the risks of buying a true problem child;
Clean it up for your own use; ( detox if it was a smoker )
Pay your friend a 'finders fee' for his work.

After all this is accounted for you will likely save abt $1500 as opposed to buying it from a dealer ( normal profit, after costs, on a used vehicle ).

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When I bought mine, new, in Nov there were two traded in that same week - a 2004 Pck #6 with 58K mi and a new 2005 Pck #6 with 3500 mi. Even working at the store the best I could buy the first one was $21K and the second was $26K. I opted to get a new one, Pck #4.

I like you have been buying used vehicles, Toyota's mainly, for 18 yrs with no qualms about longevity - as long as there is a significant price differential. IMO right now there is not enough price differential in the Used Gen2's vs the new ones. For example on that 2004 vehicle I would want to buy it for abt $15K not $21K.

The supply is too thin in the resale market to allow the used prices to reach a natural level ~ 50% after 5 yrs with normal wear/miles.

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Rigger,
Great post! Now I have something to say to the Rush Limbaugh followers who believe that the hybrid battery will cost 10k to replace!

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Not only that, but why is it assumed that the whole pack is dead? In EVs that almost never happens. You should be able to open up the battery pack and test each individual cell. It'll take more time, but in the end it'll be *much* cheaper because you'll replace maybe one or two batteries in the pack instead of all of them.