Top 10 Diesels and Hybrids With the Shortest Break-Even Periods for 2011
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Top 10 Diesels and Hybrids With the Shortest Break-Even Periods for 2011
Diesel and hybrid vehicles are often more expensive than their gas-powered equivalents and the price premium can take years to earn back through fuel savings. These 10 models make the most financial sense.
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And real-world is where diesels shine the best. Especially in freezing temps the hybrid will be using gas to move the car AND charge the batteries.
And where is the TDI mentioned? Could it be that it would look so impressive that it might have single-handedly made this article moot?
But before we push for diesel supremacy, we need to push government for less unfair intervention. At the very least, make emission minimums the same for diesel as it is for gas, not make it MORE difficult to reach even cleaner regs than gas! This unfair legislation is all very contrived to ensure they have enough gas gallonage burned to ensure they get the tax base they have been used to all these years to operate and fix roads and pad pension plans. (Has anyone's road been fixed lately?) This would be proven if hybrids were sold in greater numbers. They would then have to tax THEM in other ways to fill the $ void.
And it is these very (grossly unfair) emission regs on diesels that make them so expensive to get them clean enough for this country. It adds dollars, weight, complexity and now with urea injections, (and burning MORE fuel to burn particulate deposits on the smaller displacement engines in lieu of urea) more maintenance hungry.
I just drove from Nevada to San Francisco, up and over a 7ooo' pass, and got 48 mpg for the whole trip. The Insight is way cheaper than the Prius, and edmunds.com rates it lower in costs over the first five years v the Prius.
I paid 21k for the mid-model Insight. New Prius is at least 5k more. Rides smooth, and feels good to drive. More than I can say for teh Prius reviews.
Why was the Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf not included? Seems as though the Honda Insight vs the Honda Civic would have made this list.
Whats up here Edmunds? Someones asleep at the wheel.....
My 2012 VOLKSWAGON Jetta is a diesel. A fabulous car for a diesel, and I would put it well above any of the non german cars above for quality. How this car didn't make this list is beyond me, it's almost like Mercedes paid for the testing...
Its a shame that the VW price comparisons suffer because the base model diesels are better equipped than the base model gas engines. The Golf/Jettas should fall in line with their Audi sibling.
Or that Consumer Reports tested one with about 200,000 miles on it last year and found virtually no difference in the performance?
Or that far from $3,500 - $8,000 a new Prius battery runs about $2,300 -- if you were to need one, which most owners do not. Plus you get $400 from Toyota from turning in the old one.
Or that -- again, if you needed one, you could buy one for under $1,000 from a crashed car?
Ulyses - Honda used to sell a NG Civic, plus that super rare NGV that they offered for lease only a while back.
jpickett - the Prius is closer to the Camry, not the Corolla or certainly the Yaris.
kellyinwa - no it isn't, the Camry and Prius are midsized vehicles the Corolla is a compact. And the Prius has content way above the Corolla.
jorobbie - most hybrid drivers will never replace the battery, as they are designed to last the life of the car. Heck Hyundai actually offers a lifetime warranty on their hybrid batteries. So replacement cost is $0
I'm very interested in either the Jetta Sportwagon, or the A3. Time to trade in the turbo Outback.....
Also, picking the Camry as its "closest sibling" is an interesting choice, as it makes the Prius look more cost effective. The Prius has no exact non-hybrid version, but it's midway between the Camry and Corolla. Picking the larger, more expensive Camry makes the price premium smaller (though I'm still not sure where you found a Prius that cheap).
But the Camry has its own hybrid variant, so I think the Corolla would have been a much more reasonable choice as the non-hybrid Prius.
Of course, with these corrections, the break-even period would be over 10 years, and the ever-popular Prius wouldn't have made your list at all.
And 9,000 miles with no repairs? Great, almost any car does that these days. And they all should. My current car is 155,000 trouble free miles, previous car didn't have a repair till 180,000 miles and only had two repairs in 240,000 miles.
As for hybrid battery replacement, very very few ever need to be replaced. There are cars out there with over 300,000 miles on the original hybrid battery. Consumer Reports tested one of them and found virtually no difference from new. And most are cheaper than your range.
pgw1 - same with the hybrid, it adds to resale value
Notice in the comparison all the other cars are compared to themselves, but who in their right mind would compare a Prius to a Camry, when a Camry Hybrid is available. Or an HS250 to an ES when an ES Hybrid was just announced. A Camry in an infinitely better ride than a Prius, the ES is not in the same size class as an HS. One would be FAR better off to pick an ES or Camry over an HS or Prius for near the same coin.
As usual, Edmunds biases the article to get a few Toyotas in the top spots.