Quote:
Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
Plug-in hybrids seem pretty neat. So do hybrids. But it does take more thinking as to whether the increased initial price (and possibly later battery replacement, if you keep it for +15 years) actually saves you money or not.
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Hybrids save money over the life of the vehicle. A Camry LE is $25,845 and rated at 32 mpg. A Camry Hybrid LE is $28,080 and rated at 52 mpg. FuelEconomy.gov tells me that is a savings of $550 per year with gas at $3 a gallon. That extra $2235 purchase price pays back in 4 years. At 15 years you are $6,000 in the black on fuel savings alone - not even taking into account that the Hybrid will have it's original brakes while the Standard Camry will likely be on it's 2nd to 3rd set of brakes / rotors.
At 15 years you are at 214K miles driving the average US mileage. At that point a car is pretty much fully depreciated. Prior to the current vehicle shortage we are talking value of a few thousand dollars. Any major failure will send a vehicle that old to the scrapyard. However, if you wanted to replace the battery an OEM Toyota pack is $3500 + about $500 in labor. Most people would put that $4K toward a new car - no different than if the engine or transmission needed to be replaced for thousands of dollars.