Plug In Hybrid Figures

[wass]

On the american fuelly site, there are getting to be quite a number of american plug in prius with their associated fuel figures. These figures are worth a look for those who are thinking about buying a plug in.

There are some people who have managed to achieve extremely economical figures which would be hard to achieve with a pizza delivery moped! There are also people who have achieved figures which non plug in hybrid owners are able to reach. I am guessing that the main differences are how the vehicles are used, the ambient temperatures they are used in, the length of journeys and the general terrain in which the vehicles are used.

The good thing about fuelly is that, once registered, anyone can e mail an owner and ask about how their figures had been derived. EG smooth, flat, empty, speed patrolled, warm, straight roads with the occasional truck to slipstream...or otherwise.

My suspicion is that quick motorway journeys are perhaps the least suited to any hybrid.plug in or otherwise.

[Opifex]

It obviously depends on what proportion of your annual mileage can be done within your daily "free" range (assuming you charge every night).

If you never exceed the daily limit your mpg will be infinite. If you exceed it by a large margin every day it won't be much better than a non-plugin. The really tragic scenario would be to buy a plugin and expect not to have to buy any more petrol, but then find your lifestyle changes and you can't benefit from it.

My gut-feel is that for most people the fuel cost savings won't be large enough to justify the higher initial cost.

Incidentally, I've just found that the plugin Prius is now shown on the French Toyota site with a price difference of about €4,000 over the standard car with the same trim level, which corresponds roughly to the £3,000 difference in the UK. Oddly the French get a choice of two trim levels for their plugin version, corresponding roughly to the UK T4 and T-Spirit. Toyota must be trying hard to win over the French who normally don't realise that there are cars that don't have a Citroen or Peugeot Badge on the front and a diesel engine throbbing away under the bonnet.