Best Used Plug In Hybrid
 

Hello,

I'm looking at a few options for my next vehicle. Want to get a plug in hybrid. Currently driving a 2008 prius.

Top contender is a Ford C-Max Energi 2015. I've been able to find these locally for under 15k with low mileage. I check with my mechanic and he said they use the toyota hybrid technology inside so reliability is solid. Anyone have experience with these?

Kia Niro Plugin - these are a bit newer so the lowest I've seen is around 20k, these are also a bit bigger. Anyone have any experience with Kia Niro's, either the hybrid or the plugin?

The old hard, the prius plugin. These hold their value a lot more so its not my top contender. Is it worth the prius premium?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

I was looking at the Hyundai sonata plug in hybrid.
They loose value fast. Most of your import hybrids that aren't Toyota loose value fast for some reason.

I bought a regular hybrid C-Max for a friend, and she's horrible on cars and it hasn't had any issues in the past couple years. It would be among my first picks for a plug-in.

I owned a 2012 plug-in Prius and wouldn't recommend it because the range is too short, at an average of about 13 miles. Plus, turning the heat on or wanting more than half the acceleration power, or exceeding 61 MPH, or prolonged regen down a hill all kicks on the engine.

Any of the Ford Energi models would be on my radar; especially the Fusion. It's a fantastic car with plenty of acceleration, smooth quiet ride, and 45 MPG... I've only ever driven the hybrid, not the plug-in. The trunk will be smallish.

Don't know anything about the Korean plug-ins, but I'm sure they are excellent.

Decide how much you want to spend, what utility you prefer, and what all electric range you'd like and decide from there.

Whenever I'm trying to decide something, I list all the criteria to be considered in a spreadsheet, then I weight each of those criteria from 1-10 on importance to me, then I rate how well each of the things I'm considering fulfills that criteria from 1-10. Multiply the weighting and the score to derive a value, then add all values together to see which of the options comes out ahead.

You should be able to pick up a G2 Volt for less than 15k unless car prices are way higher in your area

I looked in area code 94122 on Cargurus and there were at least a dozen 2017 and 2018 Volts under 15k

My 2018 G2 Volt gets over 53 miles of EV range out of the box, more if you hypermile (or at least don't drive in sport mode all the time)
The ICE will take it another 350 - 400 miles depending on your driving habits and the G2 uses regular unleaded. The tank is pressurized so you can let the gas sit a long time if necessary

My experience is that the CMAX like a volt is best used mostly within its EV range
The CMAX is liked by some due to its layout but it likely has less usable space than your Prius and gets lower MPGs than expected meaning you might burn more fuel than a Prius if you drive mostly longer gas powered trips
Add that you may have to pay a lot more on registration means you need to carefully figure if it’s worth it for your use
The CMAX also has battery degradation issues which means as they age your EV range drops


The Niro and Kona twins are mostly OK and too new to really judge
But some have jerky shifting and transmission issues

They are much larger and less efficient than a Prius

https://www.kianiroforum.com/threads...-hybrids.8840/


The PIP I wouldn’t consider since a used Prime isn’t much more than a PIP with its very limited range


The Prime or Volt would be my go to for a plug in hybrid.
But it depends on how far and where you drive along with the taxes in your area
As suggested I would map out how much each will cost alongside a list of good and bad, if you need the space of a Prius there is nothing else like it
YMMV

I've driven the Fusion Hybrid and Sonata Hybrid as rentals (regular hybrid not PHEV) and they drive about the same. Both are very large cars for the limited interior room. I would personally go for the C-Max for a more useful vehicle with the same tech.

The Volt would also be on my list if I only needed a car for 1 or 2 people. It is basically a plug-in Cruze with the same tiny back seat and no cargo room.

I'm personally not hung up on EV only range for an PHEV. If the engine comes on a few times on my drive to work I don't really care. My regular Prius did 45 - 50 mpg and the plug-in should do much better. At that point the fuel cost is low enough to make fuel economy move down the priority list. The fuel economy would still be great and gas starts going bad in 3 to 6 months.

With only 13 miles of EV range, I still managed 70% EV miles in the Prius plug-in.

The idea of that vehicle was to maximize the use of the most expensive part of the car; the battery. With only 13 miles of range, you're likely to fully utilize the capacity on each trip.

I think the success of the Rav4 Prime shows Toyota should have been doing more plug in hybrids all along. There should definitely have been a Highlander Prime and there should be a Sienna Prime at the minimum. Now with a possible $10,000 point of sale credit on the radar they wouldn't even have to make non-plug in versions or in the case of the Highlander, a non-hybrid version at all.

The RAV4 Prime is still a compliance vehicle

Toyota has zero interest in producing more Primes than they need to

That said it makes the Primes in Rhode Island $10,000 less than other areas due to mandatory sales volumes

The Prius Prime has been the #2 highest selling plug-in vehicle, behind only the Tesla Model 3. As Hersbird points out, if Toyota had focused on hybridizing all vehicles and having a Prime version (plug-in), they would be making a killing by offering the smallest size battery that qualifies for the maximum subsidies.

Toyota screwed up offering the Prius Prime with an 8 kWh battery because it eats away their federal tax credits yet doesn't yield the full credit amount. They should have made it twice the capacity, with a 50+ mile EV range and received the full subsidy amount. With the Volt discontinued, there is no vehicle in that class to compete with.

The RAV4 Prime should not have been a compliance vehicle, but marketed and sold as a flagship product.

The success of the RAV4 Prime shows Toyota should have made performance hybrids a long time ago. There is no reason to saddle PHEVs with weak motors. The promise of electrification is performance AND economy in the same vehicle.

302 hp, 0 to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds, 38 mph in gas mode.


Why does the Prius Prime struggle to get to 60 mph in 11 seconds !?!

Toyota’s goal was to make the Prime be at cost parity with any other economy car so sacrifices were needed.

Sort of like the Prius AWD has a 6hp rear motor

Rumor also has it that Toyota’s battery is “a limiting factor “ as well

Toyota’s lack of real interest is because they are behind on battery tech and can’t make mainstream plug ins profitably

If you want an earful about why Toyota’s approach is the only valid one and everyone else so far is wrong contact internal Prius expert and advocate john1701a (he is easy to find)

Then Honda came out with two motor hybrids that were quick, efficient, and cheaper.

Honda Insight: 0-60 7.3 seconds, 52 mpg, and $23,000
Toyota Prius: 0-60 9.8 seconds, 52 mpg and $24,500

The Honda is faster, cheaper, and better looking

Toyota has two joint ventures with Panasonic - they have plenty of battery tech. However, they aren't willing to sacrifice profitability to make EVs and they don't have to. They were able to hit EU 95 g/km CO2 fleet average without selling a bunch of EVs. Toyota has not been shy about their plan continue to make hybrids and PHEVs while battery prices continue to fall to the point were EVs are as profitable as ICE cars.

They could have more easily accomplished that by putting a 16 kWh battery in it, since the added cost is way more than offset by the federal tax credits. That size battery allows higher performance too.

I doubt that. They announced a plan to have solid state batteries in production vehicles in 2025.

While I speculate about offering a 16 kWh "Prime" version of everything, Toyota is expert in developing cars people want and making a profit.

I have to assume that at some point Honda spent a few R&D dollars on the BMS in their cars? They went with a too-small battery and too-aggressive BMS in my Civic and it was consistently falling out of calibration, needing lots of active intervention to keep it usable. I'm still leery of Honda hybrids.

To the point of the question, I'd have to +1 the Volt if you don't need lots of height or interior space. The Gen2 has pretty good EV range; my son reports being able to drive all the way from his house to mine and back again - over 40 miles - and the engine never turn on at all in his Gen1; the Gen2 goes even longer.

Just be advised that the roofline is uncomfortably low on the Volt if you're tall, and the rear seat is downright cramped. If you're just looking for something that gets you back and forth, the Volt is your EV huckleberry that you can also just jump in and drive without a care.

What year was your Civic Hybrid? I know they had issued with the first gen with NiMH batteries. There was a class action settlement for the issue. I haven't heard of any issues with the Li-Ion hybrids.

Modern Honda Hybrids/plug ins use Chevies Voltec drivetrain

Mine was '03, first-gen HCH. I got it used so no class action settlement was going to reach me. It had a manual and was an absolute camel on long highway trips, I had a few tanks go over 700 miles between fills. I concluded early on that people complaining about low fuel economy results in the HCH were driving it wrong.

Going up the Blue Ridge Parkway the car hit a sweet spot that saw the fuel mileage computer climb past 60mpg and just keep going - I had made NO fuel economy mods to the car.

I owned a 2013 C-Max energi. It had about 32K on it when I got it and I sold it with around 62K on it. It was an off lease when I got it and I don't believe it had ever been plugged in, going by the history shown on the dash display, which will show total EV miles. I think a lot of companies leased these just for the tax credit.

The reason I sold it was the transmission was making a noise. This was common on the 2013. there was a bearing that was undersized or didn't get enough lube IIRC. The car was under warranty, but I didn't want to mess with the dealer. They fixed the problem in the 2014 and later cars.



Pros-
Peppy acceleration. with the electric and gas motor, it's 220 ish HP IIRC.
Handles great, rides nice, super quiet.
I got 42-44 mpg around town and 38-39 on highway. Once you go past 70mpg it really starts sucking the gas down.
I could get 20-25 miles EV range, even after 50K miles, but like I said, I don't think the battery pack had been used much, and I never used the battery when the outside temps got in the 90's.
The energi's are usually loaded with all the bells and whistles.

Cons-
No storage, because of how they put the battery in. The back seat folds flat, but that didn't help much.

The Ford dealers suck. I have no doubt they can fix a F150, but there so few of these, they don't know anything about them.. I had to call the Ford hybrid divivsion and have them call the local dealer to get the center stack loaded with the correct plug in EV software. The sync system never worked correctly. Later models maybe better.

Car is hard on tires. I guess because it has small tires and is pretty heavy. Mine had Michelin energy tires, and the was worn out ay 50K. I had the same tires on my Tdi and they went 80K.

I wouldn't buy another, but it wasn't terrible. I never fell in love with it, but it was fun at times.

I would shy away from a 2013.

I paid 12K for mine in 2016

This is super helpful. With how crazy prices of used cars are right now I'm just going to wait. My 2008 Prius just hit 100,000 miles so it still has quite a bit of life left in it.

Most of the C-Max Energis I've seen are 2015 and newer. The storage isn't a huge issue. Any chance you know how well two car seats fit in the back seats?

Some have recommended the Volt but that would be too small for me. Have two littles and need easy access for car seats.

My daily commute is super short under 4 miles so any plug in hybrid will have enough battery range for me to get there and back and still have power.

“New” Volt (Gen2) is a 5 seater but nothing on the market is cavernous like a Gen II or III Prius, even the RAV4 and SUVs are tiny inside

I’m told the Prime eventually gained a 5th seat and is likely the best new car value (as long as you drop $20k on one in Rhode Island)

RAV4 has less interior space than a Prius?

Guess I'm taking that one off my list, because I consider the Prius to be the minimum utility I would want in a vehicle.

Less usable storage, the rear is tall and narrow compared to a PRII making for some becoming frustrated trying to stow certain box objects

Prius 4th gen
27.4 cu ft cargo area with seats up
50.7 cu ft cargo area with seats down
33 inches length from hatch to back of rear seat
37 inches width between the wheelwells

2021 RAV4
37.6 cu ft cargo area with the seats up
69.8 cu fit cargo area with seats down
40 inches length from the hatch to back of rear seat
39 inches width between the wheelwells

Back on my list. Thanks Jason.