I hate to spoil things for you... we have several friends who love their Prius cars, but they make me laugh when they start talking about all the money that they have “saved”. Our friend Dave is an example... he is retired and doesn't get out of the house much because he is severely obese. But he leases a new Prius every three years.
He was excitedly telling me how leasing new Prius cars was the best “investment” that he has ever made. Then he told me that he had just taken his two year old Prius to the dealer for its 6,000 mile check up and it didn't need a thing done to it!
Dave is in his 80s, so I don't bother trying to quiz him on what his definition of what an investment is and mention how most other people don't consider renting a new car to be an investment. I also don't mention that at $3 a gallon a car that gets 25mpg would use only $720 of gas, so in two years his fuel “savings” might have been up to about $200 a year if he was lucky. Even if he drove 15,000 miles a year, the amount of money he would “save” compared to an equivalent non-hybrid car would not make up for the difference for the higher lease payments over the 3 year agreement. And if Dave drove more than 12,000 miles a year he would be required to pay a 20 cents a mile penalty at the end of his lease agreement. For Dave a leased Prius lease never really pencils out. But for Dave none of that really matters... it's all about “virtue signaling” here in liberal Western Washington.
It takes five to seven years for the typical hybrid owner to break as compared to purchasing the same non-hybrid car depending on the price of gas and the amount of miles that they drive. And a new car is always one of the worst investments that anyone can ever make.
Personally we drive an 18 year old Astro Van that we bought used for $4000 several years ago. It still looks good and is going strong with 180,000 miles on it. It tows our small trailers and since it has AWD it sits a little higher and we don't feel like the 4WD pickups are going to drive over the tops of us on the freeway. It is also very comfortable drives up the steep hill to our house when it snows and has additional passenger seats that we can take in and out. It is cheap to insure. We could easily still get $2000 for it any day of the week. But I will admit that a trip to the gas station is more annoying than it is for you.
I never heard of anyone leasing a Prius?
To each his own.
Astro Van! A fine choice!
You cannot beat that v6 to death with a club!
A friend was always proud of the abuse he heaps on his work vehicles, put over 125k on a set of plugs and it started to miss. Was he proud of the plugs, the ground electrodes were all but gone on most of the set. That did not cure the miss it was the fuel filter!
He said, had he known he would have cleaned the plugs and put them back in service! Now hanging on his shop wall.