"Green technology pollutes the planet"

[KeithE]

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[KeithE]

[Gene Scarborough]

Speaking of Tar Sands, I noted the recent mid-west small quake can possibly be attributed to tar sand removal causing a change in a fault area.

Anybody heard any more about this during the week???

[KeithE]

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[KeithE]

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[David Flick]

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Yo, Keith, I'm entered in a contest to win a Chevy Volt. I'll let you know if I win!!!

Only thing is that it will be MORE of a problem if I do win.....as techno-cool as the Volt may be, I think I'd sell the thing, buy a Honda CRV that my daughter wants and replace the wife's Suburban with something more modern. However, I might drive the thing for a few weeks to feed my inner geek....although then I might get too attached to the thing....at least until I got an estimate on the home charging setup.

[KeithE]

Good luck on the volt. When I bought the Prius I gave my crv to my daughter. Good car.

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[Gene Scarborough]

Have either of you gotten any updates on limited battery life for any electric cars?

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Not about green tech pollution, but since Keith and I have discussed the Prius before, here's my experience with the matter...

Went car shopping with my oldest daughter this past week. She's 19 and in the market for a somewhat high-mpg vehicle for commuting back-and-forth to school (30 mile round trip). She's interested in the Honda Fit or the Toyota Yaris and we drove both, but also drove a Ford Focus (nice ride) and sat in, but did not drive, a Ford Fiesta (seats too narrow, uncomfortable for both of us). I tossed out the idea of a Chevy Cruz or Cruz Eco, but she wasn't really interested and since I have no interest in rewarding Government Motors or Obama's crony capitalism, Gov'ment Motors is out of the picture.

Anyway, after driving the Yaris, there was a new Prius C Four (the top trim level of the economy version of the Prius line) on the lot. Very nice, but pretty much a Yaris turned into a hybrid. Push-button start, navi, cool touch-screen displays...loaded. Price tag $23,000. 53 MPG city, 50 combined, 48 highway. Cool. Not a bad price for a hybrid, I thought. So we drove it. My daughter liked it and moved it to the top of the list......until I ran the numbers.

A comparably equipped Honda Fit gets 27/33. A Yaris gets 30/38. A Corolla gets 27/34. The Fit is approximately 3000 less than the Prius C. The Corolla is $4200 less. The Yaris is $5000 less. Based on sticker price (or the True Market Value from Edmonds.com), the price difference means the ROI for the Prius C is just over 5 years, even with the Prius getting approximately 23 MPG more than the Fit. Doing the ROI compared to the Corolla and Yaris pushes the ROI out to over 7 years if the car is driven 1000 miles per month.

Not having ever run the numbers on gas mileage comparisons when purchasing a vehicle before because they were irrelevant to the purchase, it's somewhat of an eye-opener to "do the math" and discover that unless one can negotiate the price of comparable cars (say the Prius and the Fit or the Prius and the Corolla) to within less than a $1500, even HUGE MPG variations don't justify the extra expense.

So, whether or not the Prius C comes back into play will be determined by how much of that price gap can be closed between other models being considered. However, since one of the other contenders is also a Toyota, I don't figure it'll happen unless they have a fire sale on their stock of Priuses.

Also, on a rather surprising note, one recent article I discovered found that . The reasons as to why folks don't buy another hybrid aren't provided. Given the number of vehicles most folks usually buy over their life, such figures don't bode well for the future of such "green" vehicles.

[KeithE]

Your numbers are right for your assumptions. I checked it assuming $3.50/gallon.

It is plausible that she will drive only 1000 miles/month (if all she did was drive to school and back 22 days a month that would be 660 miles). But most young adults move around more for non-school events than school events. But you know her better than I.

Also a breakeven point of 5 or 7 years is a lot less than Prius's typically last especially if only driven 1000 miles/month = 84,000 miles per 7 years. Many Prius’s have lasted to 200,000 miles without even a hybrid battery upgrade ~$2300. Very few Prius’s have died percentage-wise in their 9 year history. Read . But again you know your daughter’s care of cars better than I do (my daughter is not very good at that).

My only complaints about my Prius are:
1) visibility out the back and side (with the backseat head rests) is not as good as I’m used to (have to make more use of side view mirrors).
2) that the trunk width is marginal to get my golf clubs in (so I put them in the backseat when golfing or remove my driver)

Overall I am very pleased.

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Based on my car-maintenance record keeping, she's averaged 1100 miles per month over the last year. That leaves us with about a 4.5 year ROI on the "Prius premium" with gas at $3.50. Not too bad. However, since she'll be financing some of the purchase price, the extra premium for the Prius means some additional months (5 to10, maybe) to make up the interest cost unless she ca land one of those super-duper low rates that dealers sometimes offer, which would make the interest cost on the premium negligible.

She's thinking of changing colleges to go into a medical science, which would mean she'd be traveling an additional 100/wk during the school year due to the school's proximity to our home, which would roughly add another 4000 miles per year, dropping the ROI a bit more, probably down into the 4 year range or slightly under.

A four year, maybe even a five year, ROI would work for me if I was in the market for such a vehicle because I buy cars with the intention of keeping them for 200,000 miles or 10-15 years of ownership. If she is of the same mind, then the Prius may make sense for her.

I don't have any concerns about the battery life of the Prius. In the early days there might have been a question of whether or not they would last, but I don't think that's a concern any more.

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[Sandy]

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[Haruo]

I thought Tesla was about getting off the grid and sucking one's juice directly out of the universe.