[bwilson4web]

Hi,

In 2006, CNW Marketing published a widely discredited report claiming the Hummer had a lower lifetime cost per mile than the Prius. The press release came out before the study. Once the study was published, it received a lot of well earned criticism. But one part of that study was the assertion that the Prius, in fact any hybrid, had fewer miles per year than the equivalent gas-only vehicle. However, a recent survey of completed Prius sales gives an entirely different picture:



What we find is a double-humped, curve suggesting two populations:

• low mileage < 15,000 per year - these would be folks who need a vehicle but aren't 'road warriors'. When practical, they take public transportation, walk or otherwise use the car for those times when it is needed.
• high mileage > 15,000 per year - are working drivers who drive more than enough that fuel costs are a significant cost.

The irony is many Prius 'is it worth it' articles use 15,000 miles per year as their base, a local minimum of miles Prius owners drive. But repeating my criticism of the CNW study, it would not make sense that anyone having identical hybrid and non-hybrid cars in their driveway would choose to drive the more expensive to fuel gasser instead of the hybrid.

Now I'm going to offer a Prius buyer's tip. There are a population of Prius on the market that have a relatively low number of miles per year. What this means is if one is planning to buy a Prius, the best buy would be a low "miles/year" Prius and then enjoy the road.

Bob Wilson

[HighDesertHybrids]

bwilson4web said:

What we find is a double-humped, curve suggesting two populations:

• low mileage < 15,000 per year - these would be folks who need a vehicle but aren't 'road warriors'. When practical, they take public transportation, walk or otherwise use the car for those times when it is needed.

We see a lot of people here who genuinely want to do the right thing, and drive their cars every day, but don't put on a lot of mileage. They don't take public transportation, and this is not a walk-friendly town. If anything, driving a hybrid alleviates the angst about frivolous trips. By local standards, our roundtrip daily commute of 30 miles is long. Many people clock 10 miles or less every day -- there just isn't any need to drive more than that. For most hybrid-driving folks around here, not limited to the Prius by any stretch at all, the personal utility is far, far more aligned with wanting to protect the environment, drive a neat-o gee whiz car, limit the amount pain at the rare visit to the gas pump, and have a hedge against possible higher fuel costs in the future.

[jdenenberg]

Low mileage driver (not me - ~28k miles per year) are good candidates for electric cars.

JeffD