Profit is both fine and necessary. But cars like the prius have negative payback period, Unless your driving 100,000 a year maybe not even then.
Show me a savings like moving from a 10 MPG vehicle to something comporable that gets 20 MPG and I am all ears:)
The fact is, you have no idea what you are talking about. Consumers Union did a calculation, which after admitting that they made some wrong assumptions in thier first article, found that the Prius had a very positive savings over five years (based on 15K miles driven per year). And that was before gas went up from $2.50 (their calculation point) to $3.00 a gallon. More importantly, the carbon (global warming) cost of owning the Prius (say you bought back your impact on the environment) returned your break even point to less than 18 months. If you count in the tax benefit (which because of the tremendous sale of the Prius gets cut in half after September, 2006), you actually start ahead from the original purchase.
Again it is easy to make statements based on your ideology, but totally devoid of facts.
Well we looked at a prous and ended up buying a chevy cobalt. It was about 8 grand less for cobalt, prius had NO tax break at the time and since we hold onto cars a LONG time the battery cost, I couldnt get a solid answer on that:( local dealers hadnt replace one at the time
when you take the 8 grand price difference and add the finance cost of the 8 grand over the life of the loan its a lot.
10 grand or so? how much gas do you neeed to save 10 grand? plus the cost of repairs with such a new model my friendly indenpendent mechanic didnt want the servce work or most of it, so it would be dealer rate, about twice of my mechanic.add a replacement battery and payback is forever:(
I DO BELIEVE WE MUST MOVE TO A DIFFERENT FUEL BUT PRIUS ISNT AFFORDABLE:(
Sorry I left that out. There is no reason to believe that the main (traction) battery will ever have to be replaced for the lifetime of the car in 99.9% of the cases. In any case the battery is warranteed for 8 years (10 years in CA emission states). Just remember that if you keep your car forever, most likely you will have to replace your transmission (more expensive than a Prius battery) and/or need an engine rebuild. This is especially true on a Chevy Cobalt, which is not made to last like Toyota products.
The toyota dealer did admit battery bank has finite lifetime X number of charge discharge cycles and X overall life in years.
Despite GMs reputation our cobalt hasnt missed a beat, and is great/ If all GM products were this good they wouldnt be on the edge of bankruptcy/
Toyota products are very good but when you need a part they are WAY overpriced
A lot of people buy new cars every few years, I tend to hold onto them forever
As is often the case, the sales critter had no idea what he is talking about. Call (or e-mail) Toyota corporate for a better answer. If there was a real chance that a significant number of the batteries would fail before something like 12 years/200 miles (and there have been a number of earlier Prius out there with over 200K miles) they could not warantee the batteries for a long as they do. (Note that, ofc ourse, the battery does has a finite life, it just happens to be longer than the useful life of the car).
consumer reports also questioned the battery life and at the time of purchase there was no clear info.
so get a link to a official toyota site detailing battery life and warranty.
i bet you cant becuse battery life depends on location. in the desertt southwest high temps eat batterys. around pittsburg the jarring of bad rough roads effect the life a lot.
now get those links and we can talk futher.
I still believe JUST the purchase price difference kills any savings but we shall see
How many miles so far? I thought he same way about my LeSabre. My Regal has some minor problems, but it is 15 years old, 149,000 miles, and I got my money's worth with no major repair. Last LeSabre had 97,000 and no major repairs.
Present LeSabre may force me to an Altima/Maxima or Camry/Avalon. Brake rotors ($160), wheel bearing ($200 for the part) power window (propped closed with a stick) and transmission rebuild ($2600), heated seat (not repaired, $560 for the part) have me turned off. Oh, the air pump for the emissions system is making noise when cold at startup ($400) Just seems to be falling part after about 5 years. Anything mechanical will wear, but this one is going to fast, too soon.
About 20,000 so far anmd not a thing other than opne safety recall they did it while I waited about a half hour. My regular mechanic chjanges the oil. It starts and runs well the bst vehicle we have ever owned, thats saying a lot since I am 49:(
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