Toyota Prius Hybrid: 1 Million Served

I'm waiting to see the next generation! My next (and first) car will probably be either that, or a Honda hybrid, or maybe a Jetta TDI if they have really good emissions..

Call me when the have a factory made pluggable Prius.

When I see that profile, I just think "Lose the back seat and lower the back of the hatch back a bit and you've got yourself a CRX. If they made an electric CRX with decent range, I'd put everything I could on eBay to pay for one.

I hope they get the Chevrolet Volt plug in hybrid going a little bit earlier. I like Toyota in a way, but I am a big guy and I find Toyota to be a little cramped.

Chevrolet has had a history of being a disappointment with electric and hybrid cars. I really hope they don't mess this one up.

Great car for the price.

Can be upgraded for full NEV, with speeds surpassing the ZENN NEV car.

Those that wait before buying a Prius, better buy a decent MPG old car, than a new car that will lock you for years, that you won't be able to get rid of later.

What I mean by that: consider TCO

With todays gas prices, which will continue to rise, and the buyback / trade-in value of the Prius, in FIVE years, the car effectively pays for itself if you do 15,000 miles a year.
Whereas if you bought a new Jetta TDI, same mileage.

Cost to buy, cost to run, cost for maintenance / repair, replacement cost in five years.

People like to brag about a Jetta TDI diesel with it's great MPG, w/o comparing apples-to-apples.

To get near highway equivalent, the TDI must be manual transmission. Meaning drivers of manual transmissions driving correctly the proper gear/ratio for optimum performance, and Hypermiling techniques.
Pulse & glide.

With the Prius, driving normally, gets the same -adjusted- MPG (diesel gets a 20% MPG boost).

With the Prius, driving in a Hypermiling way, gets double the MPG of the TDI diesel & manual transmission.

W/o the annoyance of driving a manual transmission.

At five years old & 100,000 miles, a Generation 2 Prius will fetch at least 70% of it's original price.
With a Jetta TDI, hope for 45%.

The Prius uses regular fuel, not premium like the SmartForTwo, or costly diesel like the TDI, and diesel fuel stations are harder to find.

So cost to run the same 100,000 miles is much lower in the Prius.

- Maintenance wise, because of the electric motors (2), the Prius effectively babies the ICE, meaning long life.
- The CVT transmission also is low wear & tear.
- Regenerative breaking also low wear & tear on the brake system.
- Toyota/Honda exhaust systems last longer than the car
- Very low rust in the Prius, many parts are aluminum

Cost to own
- Prius is more expensive than a TDI, but try to compare apple-to-apple
- A Jetta TDI with automatic transmission, four door, fully equipped (standard with the Prius)
- Multiple airbags and curtains on the Prius, making it safer

The fact that the Prius can be upgraded a real Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (45Mph) and extended batteries on the cheap, is Pure Icing On The Cake.
Kits available today are in the 7k$ to 15k$ range and higher, depending on the range you need / want.

Once my Prius is paid for in two more years, I will do the NEV upgrade, meaning my 10 mile daily commute -might- use 1/10th a gallon of gas.

With gas doubled in price again in two-three years, and conversion kits & battery tech price going down, again I ask.

Do you want to lock yourself in a car for years to come that you can't get rid of?

If you can't afford a Prius today, get a used car and save up for it.

The GM Volt, ya right, perhaps in 2012. Limited quantity. Rented batteries.

Any highway capable full electric 5 seater car with 100 mile range is very costly - electric motors and batteries for that don't come cheap. We're talking 2x to 3x the price of a Prius.

Several comments above describe the many great reasons not to buy a Prius now.

It's not the two-seater Honda CRX, by any means (in many ways it is more versatile than my Toyota Camry was, due to the hatchback design). It's a real car. Beautiful? Perhaps not to everyone, but it gets great mileage.

You could wait a couple years to get one that plugs in. Or, you could do what my wife, and I and 999,998 other have done and buy one as soon as it made sense. We have a 2005 model and a 2006 model between us, and with two kids and all the other normal burdens of suburban living, we have never felt anything other than pride.

Is the Prius the sexiest? Biggest? Most powerful? Able to be driven up the side of a mountain-est? Nope, it's just today's most efficient car. At $4.00 per gallon and rising, it even has a reasonable ROI, assuming you put any faith in business math. For me, it's just a great car, and the least bad car I can have until they finally build something that is better.

And yes, it DOES get 45 to 50+ MPG, city or highway. And no, it's not a golf cart.

nice numbers for a hybrid. The Prius is the cult plug-in hybrid car...

lets wait for the Tesla...

I'm glad this article points out the atmosphere doesn't care about good intentions. And it's good that people at least want to buy cars they think are green, I'll admit. But. Will everyone, please, read this link. Toyota are no better than BP: http://www.turnuptheheat.org/?page_id=17

"It is headlined “aim: zero emissions”, and maintains that “we believe in preserving the delicate balance between man and nature”. Well the company that placed it – Toyota – might well believe in it, in the sense that you can believe in fairies or John Bolton’s hairpiece; and it might well imagine that zero emissions is its “ultimate aim”. But it is doing precious little to turn either proposition into a reality."

"A company that was a ‘climate change dynamo’ wouldn’t be creating over a million SUVs a year and building factories to make even more, let alone using improvements in efficiency to make even bigger SUVs instead of reducing consumption."

The extra $6,000 for a hybrid powertrain is a lot for people to swallow. I say the government should use some of the money it uses to subsidize oil towards a $3,000 rebate on a hybrid car, such as the Prius. This would make the purchase price of a Prius a much more affordable option and cut the payback time from fuel savings in half. Also the Bush Administration, instead of begging the Saudis for more oil, should be offering incentives to fuel-efficient automakers to ramp up U.S. production. Also, we need to seriously look at updating our rail corridors and considering Maglev technology. In the 50s, Eisenhower's administration had the foresight to build the Interstate Highways, knowing it would improve the economy's strength in innumerable ways. Times are changing with increased gas prices, and public transit ridership is at the highest level its ever been. Investing in high speed rail and Maglev technology would put the United States at the forefront of public transit technology, like we used to be in the past. I know the financial, material, land-use, and technological barriers would be significant, but has that stopped us before?? We have to start looking ahead to the world we will be leaving for my generation (I'm 22) and our children.