Saw a disturbing Toyota Ad

[1993CivicVX]

Heh, there's a much easier way to calculate the break-even point.

Cost difference of the two cars divided by the annual fuel savings.

$3418/$327=10.45... years. 10.45... X 15,000 miles = 156,789 miles.

[1993CivicVX]

Camry vs Camry Hybrid.

So I ran the numbers on the Fueleconomy.gov user provided mpgs for both cars.

Camry LE 2.4 with auto tranny and Camry Hybrid 2.4. Cars are probably similarly equipped, but I think the Hybrid may be a little better in that it's probably a little more powerful.

After $1300 tax refund for Hybrid the Hybrid costs $3,625 more than the Non-hybrid version.

Hybrid gets 36.4mpg and the non-hybrid gets 24.6mpg

Annual fuel use for hybrid is 412.09 gallons - non hybrid is 609.76 gallons
Annual fuel cost for hybrid is $1,236.26. -for non hybrid is $1,829.27
105,000 mile life of car fuel costs for hybrid $8,653.85 -non hybrid is $12,804.88

Life of Hybrid fuel savings is $4,151.03

Net cost savings of owning Hybrid vs. Non-hybrid is $760.55 (notice with the Altima it was still negative - at least the Camry hybrid has paid for itself at this point.

However, here is where it gets interesting. If you keep your hybrid until it finally is no longer cost effective to repair it, say 180,000 miles, you really make big savings, now that you are no longer making up the extra cost of the vehicle.

Extended life ownership for Hybrid (180,000 miles) fuel costs are $14,835.16
Extend life ownership for non-hybrid fuel costs are $24,951.22

Extended life Hybrid fuel savings = $11,384.35

Net cost savings of owning Hybrid vs. Non-hybrid over extended life of car: $7,759.35

Not bad!

[diamondlarry]

I'll have to do some digging to find the thread but, there is a guy over at CleanMPG.com that, at last count, had 324,000 miles on his PriusI with both the original engine AND hybrid battery.
Edit: Here is the link. http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/my-ri...2007-5719.html

[1993CivicVX]

Sweet. So umm... we'll compare his car to a corolla? And one has to remember, these are comparisons with similar non-hybrid cars - just think what the comparison is to a non-economical car!

Had Jesse driven a 2002 Toyota Corolla all those miles instead he would have spent nearly $9000 more on gas.