Public Opinion Poll

[ladysprite]

For a little while now my sweetie and I have been bouncing around the idea of getting a second car. It's really a necessity at this point; with me working at various random places around the state it's extremely difficult to drive him to and from work every day, and public transportation for him is an expensive hassle.

We've been kind of assuming we'd get a used car, just to save money, but I'm realizing that that's actually somewhat of a hassle. Neither of us is much of a car guru, and in spite of the help of extremely knowledgeable friends, I've had enough bad experiences that I'd never quite completely trust anything particularly old. So this put us looking for a fairly high-end, gently used car with no known vehicle-health issues.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that it would probably be more efficient, overall, to get a second new car. The car I currently drive is, in fact, a fairly high-end, gently used car with no known health issues. If we bought another used car, odds are we'd need to replace one car or the other within a few years. On the other hand, if we get a new car now, the car I currently use can become my sweetie's, and there would hopefully be no need to buy any more vehicles for at least a while. Part of me feels like I'm being overly extravagant and spendthrifty, but another part realizes that, if we can afford the payments, this may be the most reasonable way to go.

The other reason the new-car concept has so much appeal is that I'm thinking of buying a gas-electric hybrid. With all of the driving I do, and with the ludicrous gas prices, it seems a lot more efficient to have a car that gets much better mileage. However, I also know that my knowledge of cars is not merely woefully lacking, but functionally utterly absent, and I don't want to hop into something like this without a lot more information.

So - does anyone out there reading this own a hybrid car, or know someone who does, or at least have a strong opinion about them one way or the other? And if so, would you be willing to share any info or opinions with me?

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

It is an interesting assertion. What I was trying to say (in an eclipsed mode - like I said, I have a headache) is that if the car is not economically superior (because the cost of manufacture and ownership are not repaid by the lowered gasoline consumption), then owning a hybrid is not done for purely economic reasons. Yet, they are popular... I suggest that any car which is less economical but which is popular is purchased for aesthetic or cultural values, and that is a luxury decision.

A base Civic is 2/3 the price of a hybrid Civic (a $6,000 dollar difference). A base Accord is a little more than half the cost of a hybrid Accord. A Prius is near 21,000 dollars, and while the Saturn L is a very NICE car, the Prius is a lot like a Dodge Neon - a 14,000 car at base model. (I'd buy the Saturn over the Neon, any day, especially if money were not an object.) The Ford Escape difference is around 7 grand.

(Ignore for the moment that you can negotiate on price for a conventional vehicle, but sometimes have to pay a premium to purchase a hybrid vehicle... because of waiting lists and all.)

Call the price difference, on average, 6 grand. That is (at $3 a gallon), 2,000 gallons of gas. At $2 a gallon, 3,000. Pessimistically, that's 60,000 miles of travel (at the high price, and with the Neon's worst MPG). Optimistically that is more like 100,000 miles. Or somewhere in the middle. If you look at the Accord, the situation is even more extreme, and against your thesis. Payback on the price of gasoline alone is a very long term affair.

Hybrid vehicles have expensive batteries, which become less efficient over time, are an environmental hazard to dispose of, and which might need to be replaced over the long haul of the cars lifetime. (Presuming that one wants to keep the car for a long time, which was implied in the original posting.)

Will they have to be replaced at 5 years? 8 years? No one knows. But I've read some interestig speculative articles that talk about car batteries that suggest they might - or that in the alternative you have a car that becomes sharply less efficient.

(And the car becomes much less efficient when one does things like use the A/C...)

And, as a software engineer who professionally deals with complexity and the statistics and risks thereof - if you have two systems (electrical and gasoline), you will break down at the level of reliability of the worst of the two systems, and that the chance of a failure goes up the more systems and parts you have.

Lastly - if you don't keep the gasoline system in better tune that I think most people do, it will not shut off and instantly start as efficiently as promised. And a hybrid whose gas engine is "hard starting" is not as useful a car.

Two years is not that interesting a time period. Most cars fail to need more than ordinary maintenance during their warrantee periods - that is, in fact, how and why manufacturers can afford to offer warrantees.

(Consumer Reports has done many reviews of the value of a warrantee or an extended warrantee for most products, and they are simply not economic. A recent article in The New Yorker (if I recall), pointed out that Circuit City makes more money off extended warrantee sales than off of the products they actually sell....)

In the end, I am not at all certain that a hybrid represents value for money. I believe it represents a great unknown in long term costs and efficiencies, and an almost certainly greater cost in maintenance of two systems instead of one.

I wouldn't buy one at this time - it is a form of luxury and mechanical experiment that I wouldn't make. Of course, I have written a great many suppositions above, as well as value judgments. I'd be interested in seeing the suppositions picked apart, or value judgments identified.

[new-man.livejournal.com]

You've clearly done more research on thios than I have. I pikced the Saturn L series because I own an SL2. I picked the Prius because Alaric owns one, so I'm pretty familiar with them (well, at least one). I think the current "L" series may be more luxurious than the past ones.

Ignoring the hybrid quality, it'd be a toss-up for me as to which one I'd pick as a car (SL2 vs Prius). I don't consider the SL2 to be significantly more luxurious than the Prius.