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Read the rest of this articleUsed hybrid cars starting to compete on economic value, finally!
Many drivers have conflicted feelings when considering a hybrid car purchase because two sides of their brains are not in agreement. One side may point out the ecological advantage that superb gas mileage provides while the other side may note that the purchase price premium take too long to make up in gas savings. The good news? That scale is changing a little, at least in the used hybrid car market.
Compare a traditional combustion engine used car to a hybrid used car and you’ll invariably see a higher price tag on the hybrid, but the difference is becoming more digestible and instead of taking a decade or more to make up the price difference in gas savings, some hybrids are starting to reciprocate after 5 years.
That’s pretty important for the hybrid market because most car loans don’t accommodate 10 years and bumper to bumper warranties don’t either. A decade-old, well functioning car is anything but guaranteed and so consumers making decisions heavily weighted on price have resisted making the leap to hybrids. The trend may be changing according to Kelley Blue Book. As an example, buying a used hybrid:
For the Civic Hybrid, the break-even point is realized just shy of five years down the road as opposed to the sixteen years required for a new purchase. This would require only 57,600 miles to be driven before the hybrid premium was recovered.
The price drops for used hybrids are arriving amid pressure from relatively low gas prices and new combustion engine options that provide very high fuel efficiency, which both give consumers more flexibility in saving money on transportation.
New hybrid vehicles are different story, and for people who are more budget conscious they may not be a good fit.
. . . [looking at new vehicles] the time needed to recoup the hybrid premium is more than 10 years. A driver would have to rack up 160,000 miles on a Prius, or more than 190,000 miles on a Civic Hybrid, before simply breaking even on their hybrid purchase!
It’s a strong signal that the hybrid market still has a distance to travel before it’s appealing to the economic side of consumers as well as their moral and ecological sense of obligation.
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Comments
In this day and age there simply should not be a concept such as "pressure from efficient internal combustion engine vehicles". The efficient internal combustion engines must simply be used in hybrid vehicles so that the saving becomes more and more pronounced. There is absolutely no reason to not combine the best hybrid technology with the best battery/electric motor with the best internal combustion engines.
Concerning the article itself: Awesome! The more economically feasible hybrids become - the better :)
Whatever analysts say about the hybrid cars, there are consumers who prefer the hybrids and countries which are more concerned about the environment are laying more importance on hybrid cars. There was a demand for bigger cars before but these days consumers are more concerned about whether the car is cost efficient and fuel efficient or not however there are people too who prefer smaller cars for road traffic reasons. However the most surprising thing is, still there are buyers for Toyota's Prius and hybrids instead of defects!! so it can be confusing as to what most of us look for in a car but since I'm budget friendly the hybrid is definitely not my type.
Estero Real Estate
This is impressive news, I wasn't aware of the facts, I never did the calculations because I never thought I could afford a hybrid. This is a good reason to dare to hope, maybe I'll find a hybrid that fits my pockets at used cars Columbus Ohio, now it's just a matter of time.