Hybrid Cars

[niky]

There is only one answer, really. Price.

The cheapest hybrid, the Prius C, is 1.475m for a car that's smaller than a Jazz and slightlymix bigger than a Yaris.

The best-selling hybrid in the US, the standard Prius, costs 2.2m, for a car the size of an Elantra or a Cruze... one that gets similar economy to a diesel sedan in mixed traffic.

A Nissan Leaf or a Mitsubishi iMIEV all-electric would cost something like 2.5 - 3m here. The Leaf is small. Also around Jazz size. The iMIEV is smaller than a Picanto on the inside.

Now, if you buy a 1.3 MT Jazz instead and spend the rest of that money on gas, you'll have 725,000 pesos worth of fuel. 13, 679 liters or so.

With that 13,679 liters, you can go around 136k kms.

No big deal, you say... so after 136,000 kilometers, you break even, right?

Wrong. After 136,000 kilometers, you will have spent 426k pesos on gasoline with the Prius C. (this is being generous and assuming the Prius will do 17 km/l where the Jazz will do 10. In my testing of the full-sized Prius, it got 17 km/l in mixed traffic where I'd expect to get 12 in a Jazz. So 17 versus 10 for the smaller Prius is reasonable. The smaller Prius can probably hit 20 in city driving, but in such conditions, the Jazz would hit 12+. Let's just peg it at 10-17 for now.

Break even given this difference in fuel consumption will be at around 330,000 kilometers, when you've spent about 1.7 million pesos on gasoline for the Jazz and 1 million pesos in gasoline for the Prius. This is ignoring external costs like maintenance (the Prius will be slightly less expensive in terms of oil changes, the Jazz will be less expensive in terms of tire use, all things being equal, we are assuming you will hit 330,000 kilometers before ten years are up and the battery pack loses most of its potency)... insurance (twice as high for the hybrid, based on purchase price), depreciation (higher for the more expensive car... probably worth an extra 200-300k peso hit after ten years) and other externalities.

Hmm... let's calculate those.

Take insurance and resale into account and break-even pay-off will probably be beyond the useable life of the car. even giving the hybrid a huge advantage in resale (assuming, again, the battery pack doesn't go kerplutz), pegging it at around 600-700k after ten years (assuming 10% dep. first year, diminishing by 1.5% per year) and 300,000 kilometers versus 200k only for the Jazz after the same (assuming 10% dep, diminishing by just 0.75% per year to reflect higher depreciation for non hybrid), you're still out around 1.1 m in insurance and depreciation over ten years versus just 700k for the Jazz.

Hell, you could give away the Jazz for free at the end, and you'd still be ahead versus the Prius owner by 200k pesos.

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People in the US and Japan clamor for hybrids because they're rich and don't mind paying extra for an expensive, cramped car that gets good gas mileage. Here in the Philippines, we have micro-cars that can match hybrids for city efficiency (Eon, Alto, Celerio/Picanto/Spark 1.0 MTs) and nearly match them for highway efficiency (20-25 km/l in gentle highway driving), all while costing a third of the price of the cheapest hybrids.

And if you want bigger, we've got diesels... which can also match hybrids in certain drive cycles. Buy a secondhand Accent taxi and you will get the same economy and space as a Prius C at a helluva discount.