Toota’s Cars are probably the BEST of both worlds — THE HYBRID.
I’ve been driving a Toyota Prius since 2010 and never had a problem with it. Gives me 50 miles per gallon on average and takes only a fraction of the price to fuel compared to a pure ICE car.
My cousin has had the same performance with his Prius. He has had to buy a refurbhshed battery for $1700...and then purchased battery replacement insurance foe $30-something/month.
I’ve risen in a couple of Prius (afraid of pluralizing that noun) and they all seem to be small and chintzy cracker boxes. I’m 6’2 and need a vehicle with some room and my wife does not like expensive cars nor chintzy cars.
I think the Prius is rather nice. Everyone I know who owns one has had good luck with it. I think a hybrid is a better idea than something all electric. I still don’t think I will ever again get more for the money than a mid-sized American sedan I bought lightly used (20,000 miles) a few years ago for $13k. I get 29.8 mpg, I have not had any work done on it beyond the oil/fluid changes, a brake job, new tires. It is the base model so it does not have gadgets that can break like seats that automatically adjust. It’s comfortable to drive on the highway.
I’m not knocking hybrid cars and Toyota is the king of hybrids since they’ve been doing it the longest with the Prius.
The only downside to a hybrid is they are far more complicated than a regular ICE vehicle. Not all techs can work on them which can bump up the price for labor and some parts.
I have seen how the bad batteries in the packs are replaced in a Prius as needed rather than all at once. I think this is wise because the cost to replace a few bad batteries vs an entire pack can be hugely significant as in hundreds vs thousands of dollars. In the case of Tesla that could be $20k. Make the packs work in a bank design so just that one bank is replaced rather than the entire set.
The Prius, because they have now been around for 25 years, has a lot of aftermarket support as well. But, as mentioned by someone, not everyone is comfortable in a smallish econo-box. Different strokes and all that...
Having said all that I believe the hybrid should be the first go-to design for automakers instead of jumping in the deep end of the pool without a flotation device with the all EV design.
This would do two things. It would ease us into the idea of EV’s and give techs time to update their skills to work on them. Getting 50 mpg in an F150 doesn’t sound too bad either. Scale the battery size to fit the work load of the vehicle and make the batteries easy to swap out but not so easy any thief could do it. All of this increases the complexity of the vehicle making it more prone to fail. Such is the price of progress I guess... Perhaps some kind of back up redundancy could also be built-in so people are not left stranded.
My daughter was on a road trip to LA from NM when her Prius battery conked out near Flagstaff AZ. Of course, only the dealership could work on the thing and quoted her a few thousands and a few days to get the battery replacement. She said, “no thanks” and traded it in for used non-hybrid on the lot.
These things are built that both the engine and the electrical motor systems have to work for the car to run. You can’t drive it like a regular car when the battery conks out or drive it like an electric car (until the battery runs down) when you’re in a bind instead of needing a tow.