What's with Hybrids?

[BigD]

This video is pretty basic but pretty accurate from all that I have read from dozens of YouTubes videos I have watched. I am considering a hybrid since I drive mainly around the city I live in and the wife only works about seven miles from home. If you drive a hybrid it would be great to hear from those who can speak from actual experience. I would want something comfortable to drive both long and short distances.

Buying a Hybrid? Watch This Before You Spend a Dollar.

Buying a Hybrid? Watch This Before You Spend a DollarAre hybrid cars really worth the money? Or are they just another trend that looks good on paper but cost...

www.youtube.com

 

[Fryowa]

This video is pretty basic but pretty accurate from all that I have read from dozens of YouTubes videos I have watched. I am considering a hybrid since I drive mainly around the city I live in and the wife only works about seven miles from home. If you drive a hybrid it would be great to hear from those who can speak from actual experience. I would want something comfortable to drive both long and short distances.

Buying a Hybrid? Watch This Before You Spend a Dollar.

Buying a Hybrid? Watch This Before You Spend a DollarAre hybrid cars really worth the money? Or are they just another trend that looks good on paper but cost...

www.youtube.com

Interested as well. I drive 14 miles round trip to work 5 days a week with occasional 150 mile round trips out of town on the weekends. I go from NW Iowa to the Dubuque area about once a year, a few trips to IC which are becoming fewer, and Minneapolis about twice a year.

 

[Grady]

I have a plug-in hybrid and it's the best of both worlds. Works great as a commuter car because it gets 40+ miles on battery without paying for gas, but the gas engine allows for long trips as well without having the range anxiety or high charging costs on longer trips with strictly EVs.
In 2018 I bought a Honda Clarity, mainly for my wife as a commuter car, since she drove about 20 miles/day + errands. Two years prior we'd put solar panels on my garage roof, and it's worked great because every night I just plug it into the 110 outlet in my garage and by morning have another 45 miles to run on the battery -- charged by the solar panels on the garage.
We also take annual trips to Colorado & Wyoming and on those trips it's just like driving a regular gas car. The transition from battery to gas is seamless. I like the flexibility of this car so much that when my wife totalled our first Clarity last year, I searched out another 2018 Clarity in MNPLS for a good price.
The traction battery is warrantied for 8 years, and when I first bought the Clarity I figured I'd trade it in 2026, and by that time there'd be a huge # of plug-in hybrid options available, with increased range, etc. Wrong. I think manufacturers really missed the boat by trying to shift from gas directly to EVs. Plug-in hybrids are the logical transition technology to ease people into the future of EVs, but 7 years after purchasing mine, there are very few models available, and the battery range hasn't increased much on those models.
The downside to plug-in hybrids is they use very complicated technology. As an engineer friend told me, they are the most complex car that will ever be built....by far. EVs are elementary, by comparison. So they do have glitches. But because of the extra weight of the batteries, my Clarity sedan drives like a luxury car and I love it.
PS: Honda was never committed to plug-in hybrids and stopped making Claritys after 5 years.

 

[Fryowa]

I have a plug-in hybrid and it's the best of both worlds. Works great as a commuter car because it gets 40+ miles on battery without paying for gas...

This is what intrigues me.

I drive 7 miles to work and 7 miles home 5 days a week and that is a good chunk of my gas expense for the month. If I could get that knocked out for the much cheaper per watt of energy in electricity it would be nice, and then have the ability to drive to say, Omaha without worrying about charge level or finding a charging station.

You said you use solar panels so maybe you're not sure, but have you ever gotten any idea what the cost difference per mile is for electric vs gas? I don't think I'd go for the solar panel route myself. Too much upfront cost that wouldn't be offset for a very long time since electricity is so cheap where I'm at.

 

[Grady]

This is what intrigues me.

I drive 7 miles to work and 7 miles home 5 days a week and that is a good chunk of my gas expense for the month. If I could get that knocked out for the much cheaper per watt of energy in electricity it would be nice, and then have the ability to drive to say, Omaha without worrying about charge level or finding a charging station.

You said you use solar panels so maybe you're not sure, but have you ever gotten any idea what the cost difference per mile is for electric vs gas? I don't think I'd go for the solar panel route myself. Too much upfront cost that wouldn't be offset for a very long time since electricity is so cheap where I'm at.

I haven't ever figured the cost difference per mile electric vs gas, but I think there are online calculators to do that, which allow inputs for various kwh costs for electricity. When I installed my solar panels I planned to live in this house at least another 20 years, and knew they'd be paid off well before then, even with MidAmerican charging .08 kwh, which is probably one of the lowest -- if not THE lowest -- in the state.
I rarely drive outside of Black Hawk county, so can literally go multiple months without putting a drop of gas in the car. I especially appreciated not having to install any special charger and can just use a 110 outlet. And I love the flexibility to drive long distances with no worries.
But as you know hybrids do cost more, and I don't really know if it pencils out....

 

[BigD]

I haven't ever figured the cost difference per mile electric vs gas, but I think there are online calculators to do that, which allow inputs for various kwh costs for electricity. When I installed my solar panels I planned to live in this house at least another 20 years, and knew they'd be paid off well before then, even with MidAmerican charging .08 kwh, which is probably one of the lowest -- if not THE lowest -- in the state.
I rarely drive outside of Black Hawk county, so can literally go multiple months without putting a drop of gas in the car. I especially appreciated not having to install any special charger and can just use a 110 outlet. And I love the flexibility to drive long distances with no worries.
But as you know hybrids do cost more, and I don't really know if it pencils out....

My son is 31 years old and so he is in that generation that is familiar with a lot of the new technology. I asked him the same question about the cost comparison and he said using the electricity to charge hybrids is much cheaper. I thought he estimated it would be about a one third of the cost of driving and maintaining a gasoline automobile.

As far as the tech goes on the solar panels from the price estimates I have gotten from solar panel companies we just are quite to the point where it makes economic sense to pay out $25k to $35k for the solar panels. The average person will have to live in their homes about 23 to 30 years before breaking even. Once they can get the panels installed for under $10k then people will become much more interested. There are a lot of uses in a person's life where $25k is needed immediately for life's basic needs for families, or I can at least speak for myself and my family in that regard.

The main thing to me would be to have the complete system with batteries included where if the grid went totally down then you could use the solar panels to keep the furnace going or keep that one half of beef cuts safe in your freezer. lights, AC and other basic comforts. Right now the cost isn't adding up for me until the cost comes down to like I said under $10k. Get it to that point I am in and telling the electric company to get lost.

 

[Grady]

My son is 31 years old and so he is in that generation that is familiar with a lot of the new technology. I asked him the same question about the cost comparison and he said using the electricity to charge hybrids is much cheaper. I thought he estimated it would be about a one third of the cost of driving and maintaining a gasoline automobile.

As far as the tech goes on the solar panels from the price estimates I have gotten from solar panel companies we just are quite to the point where it makes economic sense to pay out $25k to $35k for the solar panels. The average person will have to live in their homes about 23 to 30 years before breaking even. Once they can get the panels installed for under $10k then people will become much more interested. There are a lot of uses in a person's life where $25k is needed immediately for life's basic needs for families, or I can at least speak for myself and my family in that regard.

The main thing to me would be to have the complete system with batteries included where if the grid went totally down then you could use the solar panels to keep the furnace going or keep that one half of beef cuts safe in your freezer. lights, AC and other basic comforts. Right now the cost isn't adding up for me until the cost comes down to like I said under $10k. Get it to that point I am in and telling the electric company to get lost.

Understood. I paid about $14,000 for my solar array, and that included a complete replacement of the electrical box inside my house -- which was also covered under the tax credits. In 2016 there was a 30% fed credit + a 15% state credit, so that reduced the cost significantly. At 14 grand it was estimated to take 11-13 years to break even -- and that was before I started charging my car every night. I pay $8.50/month to have 24/7 access to the MidAmerican electrical grid, but no other electric bill for 11 months of the year...and maybe $20 for one of the winter months. It's worked out well.
One other benefit of the hybrids is the lower maintenance costs. Rarely need oil changes, for obvious reasons, and the brake pads basically never wear out.

 

[BigD]

Understood. I paid about $14,000 for my solar array, and that included a complete replacement of the electrical box inside my house -- which was also covered under the tax credits. In 2016 there was a 30% fed credit + a 15% state credit, so that reduced the cost significantly. At 14 grand it was estimated to take 11-13 years to break even -- and that was before I started charging my car every night. I pay $8.50/month to have 24/7 access to the MidAmerican electrical grid, but no other electric bill for 11 months of the year...and maybe $20 for one of the winter months. It's worked out well.
One other benefit of the hybrids is the lower maintenance costs. Rarely need oil changes, for obvious reasons, and the brake pads basically never wear out.

Are you in Iowa where you got those kind of prices? Everything out here in Utah has gone through the roof price wise. A lot of people are having to rent their basement's out in order to afford their new $850K home. The housing market was going through the roof right when we arrived here in Utah in 2016. We thought people were nuts when they were asking $330K for a 3400 square ft home and half of that 3400 square footage included an unfinished basement.

We would go into a new subdivision and look at homes and come back less than a week later and the prices had jumped over $15000. So we jumped in and reluctantly bought our home in 2017 for $410k. The same home in the same subdivision was $290k the first time we looked at it. One couple that we were friends with who lived in the same apartment complex where we were living were looking for a home at the same time but they decided it was a huge housing bubble that they were sure was about to burst. NOPE, homes just kept going up. We feel sorry for them as they could have got in at the same price we did. No our home's market value is around $750k.

I went back to Cedar Rapids about two years ago to visit my brother who lived out by the Cedar Rapids Airport. There was a beautiful home next to my brother's house that was for sale for about $385k. That same home would easily by over $800k in Utah county in the State of Utah. I was giving serious thought about buying it and moving back to Iowa until I saw the yearly property tax on the home. My jaw dropped!!! We are paying about $3500 in property taxes a year for our $750K home here in Utah. The annual property taxes on that $385k home by the Cedar Rapids airport is over $10,000. When we saw that, that was the end of any interest in that home. WTF????

I suggested to my wife that maybe she could get on as a nurse In Iowa City and we could get season tickets to the football and basketball game. Unfortunately all of our grandchildren ages five to five months all live out here in Utah. Checkmate, game over, que the audio from the old Ms. Pac Man video games when the ghost caught you............. doom doom doom dooooommmmm.

So I am resigned to hoping Utah and BYU will eventually join the Big Ten and I can catch the Hawkeyes out here. We did attend the last game that Fran coached as Iowa's head coach against Utah in the NIT game at the University of Utah's home basketball court. I think Fran already knew he was done. He seemed totally indifferent to what was going on and didn't even raise any objections on terrible missed calls by the officials.