Random Tips: Hybrids Vs. Economy Cars...worth the extra $$$?

With gas reaching pretty much an all time high, more and more people are looking at hybrid vehicles to save on gas. But really, are they such a great buy? Let's fabricate a scenerio and compare the all mighty Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle against the Toyota Yaris, an emerging small economy sedan.

MPG: At first sight, the Prius seems to win bringing in 60/51 (city/hwy) while the Yaris brings in a respectible 34/40. Although, there has been pretty much NO ONE who has got close to 60 mpg. My friend owns a Prius and says that he gets about 41 at most. Motortrend reported a poll indicating that actual Prius users got an average in the mid-40s, while their testing reported about 53 mpg. We'll go with the polled data since the sample was larger, and say the Prius gets 45 mpg. My coworker owns a Yaris and he reports a healthy 35 mpg. Prius does win, with 10 more miles per gallon. But they don't really win...read on.

Cost: Let's say that the driver drives a good 20,000 miles a year. The Prius would use up around 445 gallons of gasoline at 45 mpg of mixed driving. The Yaris on the other hand uses up 570 gallons of gasoline at 35 mpg of mixed driving. Looks like the Prius wins. But wait...let's say the gas costs $2.75 (the current price of 87 grade gasoline in Hawaii). The Prius would cost $1223.75 yearly to fill up and the Yaris would cost $1567.50. That's a $343.75 difference. Looks like the Prius wins again. Hold it, back up a bit. Remember, the Prius has a MSRP sticker of $22,175 while the Yaris S sedan is $13,425. That's about a $9000 diference. How long would the Prius take to make up that extra $9000? Dividing $9000 over the $343.75 savings would take about 26 years. You could definitely have spent that money elsewhere, such as in your Roth IRA, 401K, stocks, CDs, etc. Even when compared to the most expensive Toyota Corolla S at $15,250 at about 35 mpg, with the same driving miles, the Prius would take 20 years to make up for the extra cost of purchasing the hybrid over the Corolla.

If you are here to save money because of gas, get an economy car with fairly good reliability like the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, and Nissan Sentra. All of those cars bring in decent mileage with great reliability. All of those cars are also substantionally less than the Prius, and with the example above, you can see that you really don't save much money...in fact, you spend MORE money if you end up getting the Prius. It's kind of ironic really.

If you are looking to buy a hybrid, buy it for the fact that it releases less emissions into the environment since some of the power is diverted into the electrical motor instead of the gasoline motor, giving the gas motor less work, ultimately putting out less waste.

This might seem like old news to some, but the fact of the matter is, those darn hybrids are just flying off the shelves like nobody's business. Let's just hope they all bought it for a cleaner earth, cause they sure aren't saving any money.