We Bought a Prius

It makes financial sense given the likely future trajectory of gasoline prices. And it is lots of fun to be driving a car that is an exciting piece of technology.

Moreover, trying to maximize one's gas mileage in the Prius by maximizing regenerative braking and minimizing friction braking losses is a highly cool video game one can play.

more later...

Comments

[Anon]

Be very careful not to get caught up by the screen while driving. It is quite enticing in the early days of ownership, and can easily cause an accident. Spend a lot of time in the driveway, playing with the screen, so that you're familiar with it and don't get entranced by it while in motion.

It probably doesn't make financial sense, actually - the present value of the extra $3K or so you paid over a comparable car is more than the present value of the gas you'll save, unless gas hits $10/gallon or something like that. But still, you're only overpaying a bit for the car, and and you know you'll never fail an emissions inspection, and you don't have to feel too bad about driving, etc.

Incidentally, the Prius gas tank has a rubber bladder inside a steel tank. The bladder causes some back-pressure when filling which typically causes gas pumps to shut off too early (so you aren't fully filling the tank), reducing the effective fuel capacity of the car. You can put in an extra full gallon after the pump clicks off automatically.

[Stuart Kurtz]

In my experience, the single most effective way to maximize MPG on the Prius is to use the cruise control, whether at 25 MPH or 70.

[jerry]

"Moreover, trying to maximize one's gas mileage in the Prius by maximizing regenerative braking and minimizing friction braking losses is a highly cool video game one can play."

I prefer Freeway Frogger in my SmartCar, but we both have to be careful for the headcases playing Halo in their Hummers.

This time next year, I expect my new dotcom to be up and running. I am outfitting a fleet of buses with wifi and wimax and we will be taking our customers to work while they play WoW or Second Life. I plan on controlling this by paying a few other Second Lifers in China a few lindens per passenger to drive the buses from their terminals in second life. I figure that with your typical Shenzen Internet Cafe connection, I can have one meat person driving 2-4 buses at a time. I'll figure out the optimum ratio experimentally and tune our labor and bandwidth costs accordingly.

[andres]

Et tu, DeLongius? I have to confess that I'm both pleased and a little scared that there is at least one Prius in sight every single moment that I drive in my section of the country (I no longer live in Texas, btw). Given Anon's comments (did he factor in the tax deduction, btw?) I'm probably going to wait until there's an affordable plug-in version. Godspeed.

[Nicholas Weaver]

Some Back of the envelope:

15k miles/year

Mileage
25mpg 35 mpg 45 mpg
600 g 425 g 333 g

$3/g $1800 $1275 $1000
$4/g $2400 $1700 $1330
$5/g $3000 $2125 $1660

Which says if you value the Prius equilevent as a 25 MPG car, its $800-$1400/year savings, as a 35 mpg its $275-465/year.

So it really depends on what your alternative car was.

If the alternative was a camcordima, (25 mpg), the $3k hybrid premium makes sense if you keep the car for 5+ years, even with todays prices.

If the alternative was a Fit, civic, or equivelent (35 MPG), it no longer makes sense.

Me, I find the prius insufferably dull, so I ride a motorcycle thats a brand-new, 150hp gas guzzler: 40 mpg+ on the commute.

[RW]

A Prius was on my wish-list but now I think I'll hold out for the all-electric, Web 2.0 on wheels AKA The City (http://tinyurl.com/ywo8s9); I like the way it is manufactured and sold and that heat-engine 'fueling' option looks pretty good too.

[Cranky Observer]

> So it really depends on what your
> alternative car was.
>
> If the alternative was a camcordima, (25
> mpg), the $3k hybrid premium makes sense if
> you keep the car for 5+ years, even with
> todays prices.

For many families however the alternative was a small SUV or minivan in the 16-20 mpg range.

And then there is listed (whether EPA or Consumer Reports) vs. real mileage. Our minivan, which has what I would consider an excellent engine management computer and reasonably efficient engine, can get up to 21 mpg on long interstate trips. Unfortunately most of our driving is typical suburban/city stop and start, and the real mileage in that regime goes down to 15 (and as low as 12). Whereas if the Prius' economy meter (and our neighbor's gasoline bill) is to be believed the Prius returns 50-60 mpg in the same regime.

Cranky

PS I have to say that Mr. DeLong is one of the bravest bloggers out there; I can hear the hordes of Prius debunkers headed this way as I type. They take no prisoners.

[wcw]

Now, first thing: enjoy the car. I hear really good things about them. In a world where not a soul attacks the purchase of a Porsche, the economic benefit of which appears to be 'looks really cool in stop-and-go traffic,' I can only applaud the purchase of a Prius.

However, to claim it makes 'financial sense' is.. er.. a stretch. If it were just about dollars, you can (as we did) buy a very reliable used vehicle for ~$5k.

The Prius, even more reliable, is ~$22k.

'[A] very reliable used vehicle' is going to get, as ours does, ~20 mpg. A 2007 Prisu is going to get, as do those of our friends, not more than ~60 mpg.

If you discount at 6%, if you drive the standard 10,000 miles a year and if you believe the cost of a gallon of gas will go from $3 this year to $4, $5, $7, $10, $13 and then $15 six years out, on mileage you win $15,100 in NPV.

I don't believe we're going to see $15 gasoline, but if you do, more power to you.

If that's really what you believe, though, you should be buying unleaded futures hand over fist.

Are you?

[Andrew]

I have a standing bet with a colleague in math on this issue: whose gold (colored) Prius is parked in the NL spot between Evans and LeConte?

[T.R. Elliott]

I bought a Prius three years ago and also have a a honda insight. I really don't care about all the nitty gritty of how much I save, etc. My investment and thinking philosophy has always been penny wise, pound foolish. I bought them because I think they're the right thing to do, they're both well-made cars, and I want to support with my dollars the correct path--not the Hummer (which is dummer) path.

For me, it's that simple.

Caveat: I might buy a used diesel sedan one of these days to diversify my fuel sources. And an electric bike for local running about.

Unlike the comment above, I'll drive the Prius and forgo the motorcycle. With the thought of a collision or fall at 50 mph in mind, I'll stick with boring. Also, my insight--a two seater--is much more useful than a motorcycle. Lots of space to lug things around. In fact, I just drove my Insight up and down the highway in Big Sur. Not as exciting as a motorcycle, but life if full of tradeoffs. It was exciting enough.

[Russell L. Carter]

Ok, I held this screed the last time but now I'm going to let loose. You don't buy a Prius because it saves you money (though new car comparison with the tax credit of over $4K it looked pretty good), you buy a Prius because you can now simultaneously drive very much as fast as you want to drive, while getting 42-44 mpg, city or highway, AND you can feel morally superior to every dinosaur v8 on the road. You can ride right up to lights and brake at the last second. For some reason I can tell you that our Prius gets 40+ mpg at an average 90+ mph on a long stretch of our route to San Diego, that it climbs various 2-4K elevation gain grades just fine at 75mph, and it holds an amazing amount of stuff for the size of car you think you're getting. I'll probably wear it out in 5 years but gawd driving is fun again.

All and all, a magnificent chunk of technology, but by far the most important component of the overall experience is the decoupling feelings of moral superiority from the act of driving economically. Happily, this also holds when I drive my gas guzzling Tundra now, which looks like it'll only be driven 6K miles this year.

Yep, I'm immature, insufferable, and inconsiderate of slower cars being driven economically. But I'm still better than you, I drive a Prius (fast).

(For some reason the only two times I have ever got moving violations in the last 20 years is when I was driving a fast red rental car, weird...)

(One of the ecopeople in my town got a ticket for 95mph in his Prius, I'm jealous (not really))

[bigTom]

Well I beat Brad by about six weeks. I probably drive 15K/year, so the fuel savings would be a bit better. It is a fun car, and at least when you get stuck in 20mph bumper-to-bumper traffic you have the consolation that you are using almost no gas. I suspect that at 20mph you might get 100mpg.

It is very much safer than motorcycles. I read where the fatalities/mile were 25times greater witn a motorcycle than a car. I suspect a good chunk of that factor is due to crazy behavior, like motorcycles making a new lane of traffic out of the yellow line etc.

Some of the advertising doesn't help. "Braking is good". No you only get 60% or so back with regenerative braking, still better to avoid having to brake. It is quite a surprise to see how peppy it is, on those occasions when you need (or simply want) acceleration it is available.

Yes that gas tank bladder. My second fillup, I knew I needed at least 7 gallons, but couln't force more than 4.5 into it. That was the only occurance of that so far. Maybe anon knows how to get around that problem?

[Russell L. Carter]

"The bladder causes some back-pressure when filling which typically causes gas pumps to shut off too early (so you aren't fully filling the tank), reducing the effective fuel capacity of the car. You can put in an extra full gallon after the pump clicks off automatically."

That explains it! I ran out of gas (on the freeway, after passing dozens of vehicles up the 17 hill into Flagstaff, very embarasssing... guess I had it coming :-) because I was calculating the number of miles I should have had left from the printed capacity in the manual and the displayed overall mpg. My computed amount was 40 miles greater. We're not Prius groupies so we missed this... sheesh!

[JO]

Pix plz. Thx!

Seriously, we'd love to see your new car.

I have a '98 Toyota Avalon and keep track of all my gas receipts in a spread sheet. I've found I like the ratio of miles per dollar(of gas) best. Then when I looked back at how much I was filling up, I get the furthest on a dollar when on freeway driving, but I'm driving a lot more, spending more.

I need an hour to find how to do something involving driving time as well.

What makes sense to you?
And good luck, of course.

[PseudoNoise]

We bought an 07 Prius recently too. It's so much fun to drive! The Wife and I compete daily on our MPG ability.

[bigTom]

All of the bean counter mentality of our society is really holding back innovative technologies. Any substantially new technology is going to cost more for the early adopters. The real social benefit of the Prius, is not the saved gas, but the advance towards non-oil based transportation that it is only the first step towards. I say first step, because the next step should be the plugin hybrid (Chevy Volt promised for 2010), and the Prius is helping to push us along this learning curve.
But, you are also reducing your exposure to the next oil shock, and that usually isn't covered in the bean counter computations.

Interestingly there is another regional externality, the price of gas. Nationally gasoline demand has been increasing by about 1% a year. In California we've been decreasing demand by about 1% per year. Californians are marginally better at adopting higher efficiency vehicles than the rest of the country. Well I've always whined about the fact that our gas was always substantially ($.25 to $.50) more expensive than the reported national average. In the last month, at least in my far East Bay location, my gas is now cheaper than the national average. This change is very likely due to the improving local supply/demand situation. So yes Brad, when you drive your Prius, you can smugly think about the fact that you are allowing your neighbor to fill up his Hummer for less.

[stud]

Any of you drive a Prius in a cold climate?

I'm here in the Upstate NY Snowbelt, and wondering about two things:
1) how does it do on cold starts and general cold weather performance?
2) how does it handle on snow and ice?

further question: has anyone made a decent hybrid all-wheel yet?

[jeff hoffman]

Congratulations to all of you driving what the WSJ editorialized as " a fad ".

[Jonathan King]

T. R. Elliot writes:
>
> I bought them because I think they're the right thing to
> do, they're both well-made cars, and I want to support
> with my dollars the correct path--not the Hummer
> (which is dummer) path.

There are many paths that are correct, depending on what your goals are. But most people I know who are buying Priuses seem to be missing some really obvious correct paths, most notably:

Live where you can commute by walking, biking, or public transportation. I have commuted primarily by bicycle and bus (in the winter/darkness) for the past 9 years, and the savings are multidimensional. I have saved thousands of dollars not having to keep up a second car in the household. I have saved a whole bunch of green house gas emissions. My resting pulse hovers between 52 and 55.

But, best of all, I can out-smug anybody. Once upon a time last fall, I was biking home from work, and found myself waiting in a left turn lane in Potomac, MD behind a line of *three* Prius drivers. That is: Prius, Prius, Prius, me on my bike. I could swear they were all scowling at me.

[divF]

My wife and I also bought a Prius a few weeks ago. Our 11-year old Volkswagen had reached the point of no return, and it was time to buy **something**.

I'm wondering if we are seeing some form of herd mentality here in the East Bay. I have noticed several Prius' around town with license plates having the same first digit and three letters as ours, which means they've also been purchased within the last few weeks. Or maybe there's been a sale or something. Weird.

[wcw]

All the cool kids take public transit, walk or bike. But our host has chosen to raise kids in Lamorinda, where the public transit is execrable (trust me; I've taken the bus to Bart a few times from my parents' house, and the connection is worse than it was when I was a kid). You can't blame him for driving a car. Besides, the post here was about two things: 'financial sense' (which a Prius is -- at $20 unleaded) and the likely future trajectory of gasoline prices (Brad De Long is long unleaded futures, apparently), and the fun technogeekness of the Prius.

Me, I am waiting for Toyota to start cranking out lightweight, electric-only city cars. For now, the walk to the train in the morning and the occasional drive to save the hassle of a Muni ride seem a fair compromise.

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Brad,

Congrats, although I tend to think that Anon, above, is right that you aren't going to get your money back in the gas savings.

It's sorta the same as Kyoto: the damn thing is a bollux, but we've gotta start somewhere.

Funny vignette for ya: I toured Toyoda city, courtesy of the Japanese Minister of Technology (whose LA owned one of my coin laundries on the side) in 1972. At one point, after watching in wonder the inventory control guys riding up and down the lines on bicycles, I asked my minders "What's your parts inventory here?"

The guy said "Um, four hours." Then he slapped himself on the forehead and said "Sorry, that's a lie. It's more like six hours most of the time."

I wrote this up for the NSF and American industry at the time, which makes me one of the hundred or so people most responsible for JIT inventory control in North America. Read that as "I helped bring Deming back home..." What we have learned from Japan is to a fairly large extent, though not altogether, stuff we taught them in the first place.

.
.

[baileyman]

"Moreover, trying to maximize one's gas mileage in the Prius by maximizing regenerative braking and minimizing friction braking losses is a highly cool video game one can play."

Rather, MINIMIZE braking and SUBSTITUTE regenerative braking to the extent possible. Regenerative braking may deliver something like 10% of the fuel Btu to the wheels on the next go.

Learn to coast. You can do this by finding "neutral" on the pedal, or by flicking the shifter to N. That's where marvelous starts.

It's not a real effort at efficiency, maybe 1500 pounds too heavy for that, but it's a great car, a luxury car in my opinion.

[Ritchie]

Can someone explain what is going to be gained by combining the electric and stirling engines, or a URL pointing to an explantion?

[bigTom]

Ritchie, do you mean electric and spark ignition gasoline, or a real stirling engine (which is a heat engine)?

In the former case, the greatest contribution to dissipative loss (think friction) in a car, is with the engine. You know to use engine braking for downhill. Unless you use neutral for coasting in a
non-hybrid, you are getting engine braking all the time. With the Prius, at least part of the time, the engine is not connected to the wheels (it might even be off), so to some extent driving non hybrid, and shifting to neutral, and turning off the engine every time you have a coasting opportunity -even if only for a second or two, would be like driving a Prius. Of course that would be dangerous, and illegal.
The biggest difference I find in driving the Prius, is that even gentle hills may cause the vehicle to gain speed without you touching the gas.
I.e. the prius with no accererator input is pretty much like a normal vehicle in neutral. You can use the "B" gear setting, which forces the engine to turn, like engine braking -it wastes energy, or if the hill isn't too long, a little regenerative braking will supercharge the battery.

[T.R. Elliott]

Jonathan King: Yeah, there are better alternatives. Economically, one can buy a used car. Riding bikes or using public transportation is a good option.

[Rahul Tongia]

(I've had a Prius over a year...)

Good point, Baileyman, to coast instead of regenerative braking (which causes 10% efficiency loss, each direction, for starters). From what I've heard, shifting into N is not a good idea because regenerative braking stops at that point.

In terms of fuel efficiency, so many things matter (climate, terrain, total drive [takes 5+ min to "warm up"), and how much you really care to modify your driving to optimize fuel. My better half doesn't want to be bothered (till recently), and she gets about 45+ MPG. I usually squeeze a few more.

A few realizations - (1) You don't need to watch the screen much to get a feel for the car. (2) You will slow down way too much if you're trying to squeeze every drop out of the gallon. (3) It's a really cool car! :)

BTW, I wouldn't have been able to afford/justify the car without the $3,150 federal tax *credit*. With that, it was a no brainer.

[Doctor Jay]

We have one too, my wife drives it. I don't think the EPA ratings really capture what the car does for fuel consumption because the savings depend a lot on just what kind of driving you are doing.

The car really shines at city driving, lots of stop and go. We are getting much better than 35mpg out of it under these conditions. We've been getting 650 miles or so per tank, so that's more in the 45mpg range, and that's mostly around town.

At speed on the freeway, the car isn't going to do all that much better than a conventional vehicle with the same power, same shape and mass. The energy cost for maintaining speed is what it is, and there's not much opportunity to recover energy through braking. Cruise control is good, though.

Moral superiority? As in, point and laugh at the Hummers? Guilt trips for SUVs? Not really my thing. Though I buy carbon offsets for our cars, too, and I feel good about that. You could do it for a Hummer or a giant pickup, and it would probably only cost around 100 bucks for a year. To each his or her own.

The Prius is the number one selling vehicle in Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley). That makes me proud. I guess you could call that moral superiority.

[S]

Calculating raw fuel savings is a narrow way of calculating the advantages of cars like the Prius. It's also flawed simply due to the monstrous subsidies that automobile fuels require. The real cost to us is certainly not an easy-motoring $3 or $4.

The other, often overlooked, but MAJOR advantage is the emissions. 10% of what the average NEW car puts out. The engine and software are tuned to burn very clean. In my opinion, this low particulate, low carbon output emissions is the "social" good of driving such a car.

Motorcycles, scooters, ethanol, burning diesel oil, all these are fine impulses toward spreading the fuel and transportation options around. However, very low emissions vehicles, available initially now in hybrid form, make the largest leaps toward reducing the awful particulate and harmful gas content of our air.

(Seriously, I think our kids/grandkids will be shocked to hear that we had acclimated to such dirty air)

I enjoy my 40-45mpg motorcycle, but the particulate/hydrocarbon emissions levels are not great on these, in general. I'm considering switching it out for something electric, or electric-assist like the Prius.

[Alex Tolley]

I've had a Prius for 3 years. The real benefit was the HOV sticker that pretty much made commuting a breeze.

The gas savings are nice and good for the ego, but not $ rational. The tax savings I didn't get, as I suspect Brad won't either, due to AMT. I assume Brad doesn't commute much, otherwise he would have opted for the Hybrid Civic, as Toyota has exceeded its HOV sticker allocation for California.

Great little car. I hope they don't eliminate the use of HOV lanes in January.

[Slocum]

I'd rather buy a Jetta TDI (only the Toyota version rather than the VW version).

Seriously, I hope by the time we need a new car in a few years, there'll be a nice selection in the U.S. of the kind of turbo-diesels we've always driven in Europe.

[fringy]

You are playing the boring game. What is the lowest mpg you can get out of it over say 10 miles?

[hack]

Pulse and glide does work, but unless you drive on deserted roads, you'll tire of it quickly.

[hack]

Pulse and glide does work, but unless you drive on deserted roads, you'll tire of it quickly.

[dilbert dogbert]

Interesting the Pulse and Glide comment. My co-worker at NASA, Mark Ardema, wrote a paper on trajectory optimization in cruise for transport aircraft back in the day, 30 years ago, and that strategy was what came out. Not sure that better techniques or even better optimization techniques have come up with a different solution.

[jeff hoffman]

I remember seeing a show on TV, I think it was one of the series featuring Alan Alda, or maybe it was late night TV. At any rate the thing was filmed in a studio in LA and it featured a hybrid vehicle. When the question was posed about emissions the engineer-type indicated that the quality of the gas eminating from the vehicle's exhaust was, in fact measurably better than ambient at that location. Just wondering- doesn't the carbon cost of mfg figure into the calculations here?

[Douglas Knight]

I watched a friend play with a non-hybrid car and an instantaneous gas mileage meter. Maximizing it is not the same as maximizing mileage! With a Prius, the no idling makes it closer and maximizing the 30 minute gas mileage is the real thing, but the immediate feedback ("video game") makes it tempting to do the wrong thing.