Most hybird-car owns not repeat buyers. Only 35% repeat customers, a rate that seems to be consistent nationwide, even in “green” zones like So Cal and Seattle (the Toyota Prius seems to have a loyal following, though.) The LA Times adds, “It’s hard to know what’s causing the low repurchase rate.” Sure, pal… BTW, when your brain died, did you attend the funeral or just send a card?
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Maybe people just find them Re-volting.....
Count me in. I have a Honda Accord hybrid and although I like the car, the 1 or 2 mpg I get over the regular Accord just ain't worth it. fortunately I didn't pay the usual $10K premium when I got it Not that I would have. I think they were trying to get rid od it since they stopped making them shortly after I got it.
Sooner or later they all get SUV envy.
I just bought a Prius after looking at other hybrid cars (and even the Chevy Volt). I suspect that the issue is related to a simple cost/benefit analysis. Toyota has been the only car company, IMHO, to create a comfortable car that gets excellent fuel economy and can sell it for a reasonable price. The cost of a Prius is comparable to many other gasoline only vehicles out there, but you are effectively doubling your gas mileage. I consistently get 50 mpg or more and paid about $21K for the vehicle brand new. Compare that to the other hybrid cars out there and you quickly see that none of them come close to the Prius in fuel economy (the Civic hybrid is close at 42 mpg), or in price. Other hybrid vehicles just don't deliver on fuel economy (most are in the low to mid 30 mpg range). You can buy a gasoline only Toyota Camry or Corolla and get similar gas mileage than another company's hybrid that costs the same or more. The Chevy Volt gets great fuel economy, but costs about $10K more than a Prius so you essentially have to drive the Volt until the wheels fall off to get your money's worth out of it. If they could get the cost of the Chevy Volt down to around $20K, they'd be onto something, but the cost of labor and production here in the US is so prohibitive, that's not going to happen.
Y, the NYT graph that we posted the other day agrees with what you say: https://www.ihatethemedia.com/chevy-volt-pays-for-itself-in-just-27-years
the one thing bugging me about that graph is the estimated fuel costs for a Volt..
A Volt makes more sense for an urbanite that drives within a small electric-only range. Even this article says that the break-even can drop to 8 years if you take other driving patterns into consideration
The Volt is an interesting piece of bleeding-edge tech and way too pricey for me, even with rebates. I'm the same way with Apple products (I'm too cheap)
For the price of a Volt you could get 2 Cruze Ecos. 28 City 42 Highway. Reports I've read show they will get close to 50 on the highway, which is in Prius territory, (if you keep your foot out of the radiator).
There's still nobody factoring in the lack of capacity in the electrical grid to handle a bunch of plug-in cars. And that is only getting worse as Obama shuts down production of energy, causing the prices to "necessarily skyrocket."
As the old saying goes; " Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." This should apply to the 2012 elections too.