Originally Posted by
ItsJustMe
Gas prices will have to go up a lot to make a Prius make sense from a purely economical point of view. Some friends and I ran the numbers a couple of years ago when gas was around $4/gallon, and at that price you only broke even on the Prius versus buying a non-hybrid similar vehicle at something like 230,000 miles. If you don't drive the car that far, unless gas gets really quite expensive, you'd be better off buying a non-hybrid.
I have hopes that someday this type of car will be reasonably priced, but not yet. Even the Chevy Volt that's due out, which looked really good on paper, is going to cost > $40,000, and it's essentially a chevy sedan; in a standard car you wouldn't even want to pay $20K for it.
And then add in the brick like depreciation when you drove it off the lot. MASSIVE extra expense when you have to replace that battery at 100k. Buying a brand new car (especial these gas electric hybrids) makes almost no sense financial sense when you get down to it unless you plan to drive it till it is used up ate 250-300k.
Buy a older low mile used car that gets good MPG is the best financial thing to do. I just bought a 96 Previa for $1400. Put about $400 in it fixing a few things (shocks and stuts and coupler that goes bad on these). Motor has 120k on it. It loaded and everything including the dual A/C works, just had the brakes done. Gets 25mpg on the hwy (4cyl with super charger) can carry bikes IN it with the wheels on. Can camp with it using it as a tent when I want a break from the cold and I head to FL.