Chevy Volt versus the Toyota Prius, again
Far more cost-effective than plugging in?
The reality of hybrid cost effectiveness
Sure, we’ve pitted the Chevy Volt against the Toyota Prius in the past, but this time we have some real numbers. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t look good. So, if you think the Volt is set to save America, you might not want to read any further.
Since yesterday, many have compared the Nissan Leaf to the Chevy Volt. I don’t believe in such a comparison. Range anxiety is real and a vehicle like the Leaf will never resonate with the masses unless you can cut the price of the vehicle in half, minimally. The Chevy Volt, on the other hand, could easily convert the masses into plug-in vehicles, as long as the Volt is cost-effective.
Cost Comparison
Today, you can lease a Prius for $199.00 per month, while a Volt lease will soon cost $350.00.
The average Prius drivers spends $825 per year on fueling costs. The difference between Volt and Prius lease payments after a year is $1800. Consequently, even if the Volt uses nothing but free electricity, it will still cost $1000 more to lease per year. Of course, perhaps if gas prices hit $6.00 per gallon, then the Volt will be competitive, but considering higher gas prices push the cost of everything higher, will most Americans even be able to afford a new car?
But won’t the Volt cost much less to maintain than a Prius?
Certainly not on a three year lease, and since you can buy two Prius hybrids for the price of one Volt, there isn’t even a reason to compare purchasing cost-effectiveness. When it comes to purchasing, the Prius is a far better deal. Moreover, the battery pack on the Volt will probably not be as reliable, long term, as has been the much cheaper Prius battery pack.
In fact, in terms of maintenance, insurance is easily the biggest cost, and if insurance companies price Volt insurance fairly, it should cost more to insure a Volt than a Prius, a good bit more.
Today, the Volt just isn’t very cost-effective compared to the Prius, and that’s even after a $7500 tax credit that some have reported enables GM to reduce lease costs by $200 per month on the Volt’s 3 year lease option, but what happens after the tax credits expire?
While battery costs will come down, will they drop by $7500 per car in the near future? Likewise, wouldn’t such battery cost improvements also make the Prius cheaper, lighter and more fuel efficient as the king of hybrids could then switch to lithium?
And, yet, that isn’t even the most disturbing Volt news. After a decade on the market, hybrid cars still account for less than 3 percent of market share. Hybrids, such as the Prius, are just not perceived to be cost-effective by most consumers, and the Volt will even be far less cost-effective and much more expensive.
The comparison is not fair because Prius is a mid-size 5 seater. Volt is a 4 seater, likely a compact size.
When Prius is compared to a similarly equipped non-hybrid mid-size car, the payback is 5 years (per Intellichoice). Of course you get back more than the hybrid premium. You get premium features specifically available in a full hybrid.
Volt will not be able to pay back plugin premium over a hybrid like Prius, never mind it’s gas-only cousin ($17k Chevy Cruze).
Prius would consume 3,000 gallon of gas over its lifetime (150k miles). Volt has potential to displace all 3,000 gallons at best case. In order to do that, Volt costs $24k more. In essence, it costs the owner $6 per gallon for saving it. At $3 per gallon, who would pay twice that amount to save it?
There must be a better solution. Just wait for more information from PHV Prius.
To summarize my point above:
You can go buy 3,000 gallon of gas for $9,000 and pour it into the ground.
That’s cheaper than buying Volt with $24k premium in attempt to save 3,000 gallons over Prius.
yes i’m agree with “usbseawolf2000″, the comparison is not fair this not apple to apple, but i try to understan about sense in this article, i thing this article try to said Hybrid Electric Vehicle (Chevy Volt) with one source power to move the engine doesn’t mean not buy fuel like hybrid car with two source power Gasoline engine and electric engine (Toyota Prius).
Like anything else that is new, look for the price to drop significantly in about two or three years as other manufacturers ramp production.
Also IFBesides once the government can no longer print any more money and it goes broke, you will see the $7500 credit dry up or drop to $0. Once that happens the price will fall between $5000 and $7000. I don’t ask you to agree with or believe me – only that you remember what I said.
I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a price drop on the Volt. GM has no intention of seriously entering the altfuel market. The fact is, they don’t need the US to purchase their vehicles. They’re selling so damn many in China now, the US is a secondary market at best. Probably third after taking into account European sales.
I’m sorry, but once we get back EVERY SINGLE PENNY WE BAILED OUT THESE SCUMBAGS WITH, we should let GM bite the dust. I just feel sorry for all the workers stuck with these yahoos.
That new argument does not hold because Prius was sold at $19,995 when it was introduced in the US 10 years ago.
The car got better while keeping the price about the same.
Yeah, the China story is very interesting and scary.
I have a lot of friends at GM, but as a corporation they’ve just not shown any real leadership in shaping the future, and they still are not in my opinion.
@Tom G: I’ll try to remember your comments, and I believe that your argument about dropping prices does hold water, but how much it holds I’m not sure about. I think prices will surely drop, but how far above the floor are they right now? How much can the price of these cars be trimmed while new technologies are being developed and new materials are experimented with. I can only imagine the costs of R&D and infrastructural improvements that are needed before these cars can really gain mainstream appeal. The economy is still suffering and I don’t know if it can support such rapid growth in this one sector. I’ll be more optimistic when I see an overarching effort to build a viable green economy, which I think could spur the type of growth and job-creation that is of widespread benefit. Don’t get me wrong because I’m not pessimistic, I just think we have a ways to go before cars like the Volt can make a real impact and I wonder if the big automakers are pushing out products that aren’t ready that will end up turning consumers off from plug-in hybrids and BEVs. At least with the Prius, consumers can be confident in what to expect from the car.
That’s too funny seawolf.
The Volt is a great concept, but that’s it. It just isn’t a cost-effective technology, and GM has known it wouldn’t be cost-effective for the last several years. But as Bob Lutz readily admitted, the Volt wasn’t conceived or designed to change the world, it was designed to challenge the green halo of the Prius. That’s it. Certainly, the Volt provides GM with some good battery experience, etc., but the Volt itself has always been about marketing.
And, while I agree that the PHV Prius will be a better solution, it still seems to me that plug-ins just aren’t ready to be the solution yet. In many ways, if plug-ins are the future, it might be better to focus on hybridizing everything first.
I think you guys would appreciate the related conversation the following TTAC post sparked.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/chart-of-the-day-volt-competitors-1995-2009/
Tom-
I agree that Volt costs will come down, but not enough. Even if GM can bring down costs enough to make up for the lack of a tax credit, the Volt still doesn’t make cost-effective sense by a long shot. The battery studies and experts have been pointing this out for the last year, at least.
Lithium batteries have been around for more than 3 decades. Even if a best case scenario, in terms of manufacturing improvements, is achieved, the commodity costs alone of the lithium battery will still make it too expensive according to the researchers. Chances are, however, we won’t even achieve that best case manufacturing scenario.
Likewise, at $41,000 GM still is not recovering the R&D and production costs, which easily top $1 billion+. Fortune Magazine, for instance, has speculated that even at $40,000 GM still is losing money on the vehicle itself, not including production costs.
In terms of plug-ins, pure battery powered EVs or small battery pack plug-in hybrids make the most cost-effective sense. Even then, however, they still aren’t cost-effective or consumer-friendly to most consumers without a new battery technology or something like dynamic charging.
“I just think we have a ways to go before cars like the Volt can make a real impact and I wonder if the big automakers are pushing out products that aren’t ready that will end up turning consumers off from plug-in hybrids and BEVs.”
Interesting point, autooffficionado. No doubt a lot of the current plug-in effort from major automakers feels more like greenwashing than a real attempt to significantly change the powertrain of choice in the US.
well, if some folks think this is GM’s opening salvo to compete against Prius …then why didn’t they produce this car in a conventional hybrid version for about $25K?
If nothing more if forthcoming from GM any time soon, I’d guess that this is their way of existing the field.
The Volt is going to end up like this car:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon
The underlying issue is that the manufacturers know these vehicles will be more expensive to produce, at current market prices for rare metals and such, so they pump up their sale value by tacking on all the crap extras – leather seats, keyless locks, asshole warmers – and other worthless shit just to jack up the price.
Hey, remember when cup holders were NOT a requirement to build a car?
I understand certain technologies are becoming more common and perhaps you do need an IPod plug in to play (insert name of latest 15-minute famer here). But why make them MANDATORY on each vehicle? These add-ons should all be optional and let the buyer option for those extras and pay the appopriate price for them. This way you can pare down a car to it’s basics, for those of us who don’t want the extra and you’ll also get a truer reflection of the vehicles actual purchase price.
My point is, if the manufacturers know they’ll be losing money upfront on these cars, why not price them less without the extras and possible make money on the VOLUME of vehicles being purchased. Simple economics – costs come down with the increase of volume sales.
Just thinking…
Ah Larry you know I have the original Ford nuclear truck. It uses Co60 to irradiate a cesium core blanket to produce over 2 GW of electrical energy. It also charges my other car, I take the core from the truck and run my boat with it, it heats my home and also powers my tooth brush, LOL.
It was a concept that thankfully never made it to production. Can you imagine how happy the terrorists would be today if they could just go shopping at a local junkyard for some radioactive materials. I wonder – what ever happened to the original radioactive core from that vehicle?
Anyway; here is some food for thought. Van Jones has a plan. Cap and Trade is not dead. Oh sure the Congressional version is – the EPA version is not. Also, mark my words, there will be a tax on carbon before the end of our presidents first term.
The plan also includes strategies to mold our society into one which embraces electric vehicle and you should be able to see this coming if you study the underlying psychology of the daily news. We will all in the end be convinced this is in our own best interest regardless of the logic involved. And finally the most insulting statement ever made by someone in government – the American people are stupid.
Bring the price of the Volt down is NOT viable. It is possible but would you want it?
That means the resale value of the Volt gen1 will tank! If the Volt gen2 came out in 2013 for $35k, gen1 owners are f**ked in the a*$. Sorry about the language but I really feel it is necessary to express it that way.
It is clear it is the reason why Toyota chose to start Prius price at affordable ($19,995) level and kept improving it.
@Santos: Volt is a hybrid car. It has two power sources (gas and battery)– the same as Prius. Volt goes 40 miles electric and Prius goes 1.5 miles electric. If you say Volt is an electric car, so should you Prius as well.
SAE categorize the Volt as a Plugin Hybrid.
If I were at GM I would be embarrassed. To be honest, I’d like to pull the entire leadership of GM into a room and explain to them that at one time GM was part of an efficient arsenal of Democracy that cranked out war machines that defeated the Nazi’s and Imperial Japan,…unfortunately gentlemen, you are not those men. You are all fired. The Prius is just a prime example of pushing existing technology to the limit. Its comfortable, high quality, reliable, and efficient. Something that the Volt can only aspire to.
Volt uses an engine that charges the electric battery and that is what moves the Volt. The Prius is a series-parallel hybrid that moves using electric, gas, or both.
I don’t think automakers want these cars to be volume vehicles, do they doug? At least not yet, there is still way too much profit to squeeze out of the current lineup until either gas prices or regulations force consumers to change. Until then, it’s just too easy to sell more profitable, at least in the short term, vehicles to consumers.
usb-
your point is interesting because when the Volt was still just a concept, GM did believe temporarily that they could keep the price closer to that of the prius. that’s how poorly thought out was the concept when debuted.
still, that isn’t really surprising. bob lutz, the original driving force behind the Volt, conceived of the Volt as a marketing response to the success of the prius and the negative image of GM regarding technology, fuel efficiency, etc. even more interesting, until he left GM, he still claimed that the volt would never resonate with more than just the 5 percent of society willing to pay extra to be green as he called it.
lots of mistakes made here, most notably, not developing a legitimate prius fighter in the interim. if gas prices increase a dollar or so in the next couple of years, as plug-in tax credits expire, prius sales will skyrocket and volt sales will lag far, far behind.
Yup dahcredyns – I can see the following coming.
‘as plug-in tax credits expire, prius sales will skyrocket and volt sales will lag far, far behind.’
Question: Did GM aim for the sweet spot of Plug-ins?
Answers: bahahahahaahhahahhaha
Question to GM: “What WERE you thinking”?
the whole deal is inexplicable…. what exactly is GM doing?
IDK whats up with u dumb sob’s but if u realize that whole picture please. Japan invaded usa soil in 1941. we released the nuke on them. Now obviously there slowly but shurly killing our buisnusses. Dont u see? Ur all falling for japanize junk cars cause there cheap. soon they will rule ur life. I would much rather pay for a volt than have japan controll me! By the way a prius is really ugly and looks like a damn turd. The chevy looks like a razor ready to cut up all toyotas. And i just got word that gm is selling the volt for 31000. So yea quit b2tchin about price! My family has had gm cars for 70 years. We loved every one of them. And my 2010 camaro will kick all yalls cars to the curb! My Truck too. Good by Toyota. Hello Volt! Oh yea chevys have never had a pedle stick! Ever.
Wow, Lucas. And what country helped rebuild Japan the most?
GM is selling the Volt for $41,000. The feds are picking up $7500 of the cost of the Volt.
Likewise, sudden acceleration has been reported in every make of vehicle.
I think you could use a few history lessons, minimally.