Photo courtesy of Jumbo Jack at Flickr.com.
Ikea, Home Depot, and the Green Exchange are just a few businesses that now offer preferred parking for hybrid owners. Apparently, IKEA’s Canadian stores offered hybrid only parking spots for more than a year… so it wont be long before we start seeing more and more of these spots in choice locations at the front of parking lots.
Hybrid cars not only use less fuel (and pay less fuel tax per mile driven) but they also get to ride in the HOV lane here in Dallas. Other cities offer free parking spots, discounts on city meters, or immunity from anti-congestion fees. All these incentives add up, and just might have something to do with the decline in sales for gas guzzlers.
Cynics have pointed out that many hybrid drivers get special treatment because they are often in the upper 5% income racket, but I’ve got a simple gauge for whether something is a good idea. If a certain course of action makes the mouthbreathers furious, then that’s a good policy.
Photo courtesy of Bob_2006 at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Photo courtesy of efusco at Flickr.com.
Hybrid cars make me drool. The idea of getting 50 miles per gallon instead of 25 is almost enough to make me run out and get one today. But, hybrid cars are expensive and there’s an environmental case to be made for getting the full life out of my current car before I go shopping for a new toy.
It’s tempting to try for the best of both worlds and shop around for a used hybrid car. But, we’re rapidly approaching a milestone in the age of hybrid cars. Battery packs from Priuses made in 2001 were only rated for 100,000 miles (what do you call more than one Prius, anyway? Priusi?). Assuming the previous user drove 12,000-15,000 per year, that means the cars are likely to have 100k or more on the odometer. So, a first generation Prius is likely to come with a geriatric battery.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Used cars have all sorts of maintenance issues, and car buyers pay a discounted price because they know that costly repairs are a possibility. Battery packs break the mold because battery technology is complicated and hybrid battery packs are shockingly expensive. When these battery packs wear out, they can cost several thousand dollars to replace, and require expert technicians to do the work. From the Newsweek article:
Philip Card of Utica, N.Y., says a Toyota dealer wanted to charge him $3,900 to replace the battery on his 2001 Prius, which had 350,000 miles on it when he bought it used on eBay this year for $4,357.
So, here are a few things to bear in mind:
1) A huge aftermarket is developing for hybrid batteries from wrecked hybrids. If your Prius is totaled by hail damage or a fender bender with an SUV, don’t let a savvy scrap dealer take advantage of you by “taking the wreckage off your hands”.
2) The resale price of hybrids is falling in line with the resale price of the non-hybrid versions. Due to uncertainty over the value of hybrid batteries (and the cost of upcoming replacement), there may be some real deals out there if you can find hybrids with cosmetic wear but value under the hood.
So, Caveat Emptor! When shopping for a used hybrid, it might be a good idea to pay for a diagnostic evaluation of the battery pack. And, if you’re one of those Prius, Insight, or other hybrid drivers who I’m jealous of, here are a few rechargeable battery tips that you can use to get the most mileage from your battery pack before it needs replacing. One way to put these battery saving tips into practice is with a trickle charger that keeps the battery above 50% of charge without overheating it.
Photo courtesy of garyhymes at Flickr.com.
Popularity: 10% [?]
The Wall Street Journal reports that Honda is moving forward with a new generation of hybrid cars that will hopefully have just a small price premium over regular cars. This would allow them to pay for themselves through gasoline savings much more quickly.
Honda’s goal is to sell 500,000 hybrids a year sometime after 2010. Still, that would fall short of Toyota’s target of selling one million hybrids annually sometime early in the next decade.
Honda says it will increase sales by introducing a lineup of hybrid vehicles, including a sport hybrid based on the CR-Z, a redesigned Civic Hybrid and a hybrid version of the fuel-efficient Fit subcompact. The key element of its new green strategy is to make hybrid vehicles more affordable.
“It is important to move hybrid vehicles from the current image-oriented stage to the new stage of full-scale penetration” of the market, Mr. Fukui said.
Mr. Fukui said that the new vehicle, which has yet to be named, will be affordable and that weight reduction, more compact components and new technologies will help increase fuel efficiency.
At present, hybrids cost significantly more than gas-engine vehicles. The Toyota Camry hybrid, for instance, costs $6,730 more than the gas-engine model, while Honda’s Civic hybrid is about $4,000 more than the gas model.
Honda’s first new vehicle will be sold only as a hybrid, as is the Toyota Prius. Honda expects to sell about 200,000 of these vehicles annually, half of those in the U.S. market. The car is based on the design of the FCX Clarity, the fuel-cell vehicle.
I am excited to see a direct competitor to the Prius. I can’t wait to see what Honda comes up with.
Popularity: 11% [?]