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Local urban running and short journeys suit hybrids down to the ground, hybrids convert deceleration and downhill forces into battery power, plug in hybrid would save you lots of fuel assuming you have really cheap overnight charging facilities...whether cost effective you would have to work out.
Lots of back of envelope calcs reqd for you, would the cost to change be worthwhile in fuel savings, do you want to change cars anyway, if not generally our own present cars unless they have a serious drink problem or fall into a rip off VED band are the most cost effective solutions..
The extra cost for a plug in hybrid is large and it still would need overnight charging maybe 2 or 3 times a week or maybe every day, whether fuel savings would meet the costs to charge plus the cost to buy the thing in the first place plus have your electricity supply converted including getting a smart meter, only you can answer.
I don't think there's any one size fits all answers for any of us, it was bad enough when all we had was a choice between Diesel and petrol (very few of us opted for LPG conversions too), but now we have hybrids of various types and pure battery cars to top the lot, all among rising shifting costs and supply issue with all the various fuel types...and none of us know what next weeks govt ministers will be told to tax heaviest and blame Putin for it.
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The Mazda 2 self charging hybrid is really just a Toyota Yaris hybrid in disguise.
If your current petrol vehicle is ok then do you really need to change it?
Yes a new self charging hybrid will be better on fuel economy compared to a pure petrol vehicle, you can get some fantastic average mpg figures from the 4th gen Yaris hybrid power unit if driven correctly - but it will take a lot of mileage to make back the cost to change figure to make it worthwhile.
Go take a test drive, at the end of the day its your money & your choice.
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Another possible consideration is whether you have always been accustomed to driving a manual or automatic ... to the best of my knowledge all mainstream hybrids have automatic gearboxes.
You can quickly get used to this, but if you have always driven a manual you might find it another reason to reconsider a change.
As time goes by we shall all have no choice when buying a replacement vehicle but to be buying an auto, and you might argue that it's better to used to the change whilst you are still "young"!
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With the miles and usage you describe I would advise that you stick with what you have rather than a more complex car.
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The Mazda 2 self charging hybrid is really just a Toyota Yaris hybrid in disguise.
Indeed - as much of 'disguise' as Superman putting glasses on to become Clark Kent. Swa one in my local dealership today as I was waiting for my car to be serviced. They look ok, but nothing special. I wonder if the warranty is the same for the Mazda as for the Toyota?
If your current petrol vehicle is ok then do you really need to change it?
Yes a new self charging hybrid will be better on fuel economy compared to a pure petrol vehicle, you can get some fantastic average mpg figures from the 4th gen Yaris hybrid power unit if driven correctly - but it will take a lot of mileage to make back the cost to change figure to make it worthwhile.
Go take a test drive, at the end of the day its your money & your choice.
The OP will likely never make their money back, so if their current car does the job fine, is reasonably reliable and structurally ok, then why change? Run the existing one until it cannot be fixed at a reasonable cost (bearing in mine the cost to buy a new one).
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I would completely agree that (unless there is something wrong with it) keeping your current car makes most financial sense.
However a self charge hybrid is perfectly suited to your usage.
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I’ve a feeling that once the petrol engine has been awakened by whatever (minimal) charge is in the battery being used it, it’s effectively a cold start of the engine and it won’t shut off again until it has reached at least a semi warm state, so that it’s not constantly running cold, switching off, restarting and never warming up.
Particularly in winter, once the engine has been roused, I suspect it would run for a fair chunk of your four mile journey, thus meaning that the economy figures - for your particular use pattern - are unlikely to be much better than for your existing car.
If you were doing, say, a 10 mile journey; I’d expect the petrol engine to kick in fairly early on, warm itself up and then allow the vehicle to function more efficiently, as the battery is ‘self charged’ (hate that phrase) as you travel along, with the engine kicking in and out as determined by the battery’s state of charge.
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I wonder if the warranty is the same for the Mazda as for the Toyota?
Nope.
Mazda is 3 years plus a bit on the hybrid system
Toyota is 10 years if you keep it serviced and quite a bit on the hybrid system
If the Mazda was loads cheaper it would be worth considering, IMHO its not.
A bit like the Suzuki Corolla and RAV4 clones, makes no sense whatsoever.
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If the Mazda was loads cheaper it would be worth considering, IMHO its not.
A bit like the Suzuki Corolla and RAV4 clones, makes no sense whatsoever.
froom the manufacturer's point of view it does make sense - it lowers their fleetwide emissions which should lower or even avoid penalties. (even though we have left the EU afaik we are still harmonised for vehicle legislation).
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I’ve a feeling that once the petrol engine has been awakened by whatever (minimal) charge is in the battery being used it, it’s effectively a cold start of the engine and it won’t shut off again until it has reached at least a semi warm state, so that it’s not constantly running cold, switching off, restarting and never warming up. Particularly in winter, once the engine has been roused, I suspect it would run for a fair chunk of your four mile journey, thus meaning that the economy figures - for your particular use pattern - are unlikely to be much better than for your existing car. If you were doing, say, a 10 mile journey; I’d expect the petrol engine to kick in fairly early on, warm itself up and then allow the vehicle to function more efficiently, as the battery is ‘self charged’ (hate that phrase) as you travel along, with the engine kicking in and out as determined by the battery’s state of charge.
Fair points there, my main experience of hybrids comes from my transporter days (ended in 2008/9 so way out of touch now) when i collected many Prius' from the import centre and delivered then onto dealerships, these cars would have been moved multiple times and in PDi at the import centre before being put into the compound and then into load lanes when called up for delivery.
They always moved off on battery power and the engine would almost silently fire up after a few seconds if more power was required to climb the transporter decks, at delivery point it was the same but seldom would the engine engage unless a steep ramp was encountered, this was the time before plug ins became a thing, winters with frozen windows were obviously different when the engine would be needed for defrosting, the quiet of a Toyota hybrid engine at low revs is almost uncanny.
Maybe a perusal of Mazda hybrid forums might be of interest to the OP in light of your post, and if he would consider another make ie Toyota hybrid (several very positive reports here over time from happy owners), as Skidpan notes there is no comparison between the warranties of the two makes, and so many thousand taxi owners can't all be wrong.
From a logic point of view, our OP could drive nearly everywhere on battery power alone if he bough a plug in and had home charging facilities, whilst in some ways a battery only car might seem the right choice cost wise is a full hybrid any more expensive to buy and own? lots to consider here for decisions many of us will be making in due course amid a shifting energy world.
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I’ve a feeling that once the petrol engine has been awakened by whatever (minimal) charge is in the battery being used it, it’s effectively a cold start of the engine and it won’t shut off again until it has reached at least a semi warm state, so that it’s not constantly running cold, switching off, restarting and never warming up. Particularly in winter, once the engine has been roused, I suspect it would run for a fair chunk of your four mile journey, thus meaning that the economy figures - for your particular use pattern - are unlikely to be much better than for your existing car. If you were doing, say, a 10 mile journey; I’d expect the petrol engine to kick in fairly early on, warm itself up and then allow the vehicle to function more efficiently, as the battery is ‘self charged’ (hate that phrase) as you travel along, with the engine kicking in and out as determined by the battery’s state of charge.
Maybe a perusal of Mazda hybrid forums might be of interest to the OP in light of your post, and if he would consider another make ie Toyota hybrid (several very positive reports here over time from happy owners), as Skidpan notes there is no comparison between the warranties of the two makes, and so many thousand taxi owners can't all be wrong.
There are logical reasons to sometimes buy the Toyota clones from Suzuki /Mazda - warranty isn't everything, particularly on a car which it's reputation means you're unlikely to need the warranty. In my case I got the Suzuki badged version because the Suzuki dealer is nearer/better than the (large chain) Toyota dealer, and the car itself (in "nearly new" guise) was about £3000 cheaper than the closest (slightly lower spec) Toyota. My view is that the long warranties are more about trying to keep you visiting the main dealer in later years when they can make more money out of the servicing as more needs doing as the car gets older.
The Toyota hybrid system in my car seems to fire up the engine as soon as you press "On" when the air temperature is less than about 10 degrees. Warmer than that and it will drive off on whatever is in the battery until either the battery runs out or you demand more power.
In my case, in summer it will always drive all the way out of the estate I live on, which is about quarter of a mile of 20mph or less over speed bumps. The engine then fires up when I have to set out briskly onto the main road, before cutting out again about three quarters of a mile later where that road starts to go downhill.
In winter unless it's below freezing the engine still cuts out in the same place on my route from home, having been on from when I leave the drive instead of when I join the main road. At that point the water temperature gauge is a bit below the "normal" temperature range so not fully warm but definitely no longer stone cold either.
The engine warms up far faster than any other car I've owned - possibly because it revs at around 1500rpm even if the car is stopped. Also I assume the hybrid battery charging is putting a load on the engine rather than the engine just idling which helps it warm up too.
On the basis of my experience, I reckon the OP would get about 3 miles of his 4 mile journey with the car no longer in its warm up cycle, so would still get some fuel economy benefit from it being hybrid. However if you only do a couple of thousand miles a year, the fuel cost would be fairly insignificant in the overall cost of running the car even with a big V8 doing less than 20mpg!!
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The engine warms up far faster than any other car I've owned - possibly because it revs at around 1500rpm even if the car is stopped.
Some engines now have and have had a while, electronic thermostats controlled by the ecu along with electronic ecu controlled oil pumps to only supply the engine parts needed at the revs they are doing, which speeds up the warming process so the engine gets to normal temp within minutes
yours may have this as Toyota have iirc since 2016 or so a Toyota tech told me as I had taken a car in to have serviced for a relation.
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The 1.5 hybrid dynamic force engine used in the Yaris hybrid does warm up fast as it uses ecu controlled electronic water pump & thermostat - it doesn't have the electronic coolant shut off valves like the 2 litre & 2.5 versions of the dynamic force hybrid power units.
The 2 litre hybrid in my C-HR is extremely quick to get up to operating temperature - it takes less then a mile from a cold start.
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