I’m sure the Prius is a fine car...but so is a Ford Focus.
Base model Prius - $26,400 gets you 44/40 mileage
Base model Focus - $16,500 gets you 26/36
At $3.40 a gallon, the breakover for the Prius owner (not including higher insurance and taxes) would be 344,000 miles.
Or try a Hyundai Elantra - $15,345 gets you 29/40
The breakover would be 623,000 miles
Ergo, this car owner is not right in the head.
I imagaine the breakover on the windows is even worse.
It might be even worse than that — I doubt that battery system will make it to that crossover point. Working that into the equation might very well show that it never breaks even on the capital investment(s).
I didn’t buy my Prius to save money. It was cheaper than the Volkswagen Passat I had before it, that car had been pushed up in price point by the company that year, making it ostentatious and a staement I didn’t want to make. The Prius had a great saftey record, great repair record and I wouldn’t need to stop for gas so often. A Ford Focus was not in the picture. This is not a sensible argument, we have lots of different car companies, and models because people look for different things but by all means attack Prius owners as stupid liberal tree huggers. I will continue to fight for smaller Government, individual responsibility, drill here now, and confuse all the folks who think it makes me part of a club to own a Prius.
One of our friends just bought one of the new Fiats.I guess they go for around $12,999 and get great gas mileage.Not sure right now how much it gets but he said it is saving him about $30 a week and he was driving a mini Cooper before.
Please re-do your figures. My Prius gets 54-58 MPG. And also include the value of my time that I do NOT stand around a gas station waiting for the tank to fill (just figure it as $20/hr) and the time finding a gas station and driving to a gas station. Thank you.