Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not?

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 09:13
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - bootzey

Hi. Bit of background 1st...

I deliver 100+ newspapers to households 7 days a week making roughly 95 stop/starts in a couple of hours and do 22 miles.

I use a 56 1.2 Twinport Corsa at the moment...lots of acceleration and heavy breaking. As you can imagine my fuel costs have increased dramatically recently and are now £240/month. I'm getting far to old to be busting my bones fixing and maintaining it literally every weekend. It's becoming increasingly unreliable and has cost me a grand this year in lost wages.

So my Mum has lent me £4K to get a decent reliable car. The catch is that she can then give up driving and I'll be her personal, free Uber.

So I've been looking at hybrids and plug-ins. I'll need finance for a plug-in...there's a cheapish Ampera locally. But my credit rating will put paid to getting that. So it'll undoubtedly be a Prius...newer model and scarily high mileage at 180K+ for £4K+.

Question is...will a Prius or any other hybrid cope with the intensity of my work?

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 09:43
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - badbusdriver

With the sky high used car prices being as they are at the moment, £4k isn't going to go as far as you think. Any Toyota hybrid should be reliable, but I'm not sure I'd put much faith in a 180k mile example.

Surely for delivering newspapers a moped with a cargo box would be a better option?

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 12:13
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - bootzey

Hmmm, moped. Have you seen The Times today or The Telegraph yesterday? Both higher than my passenger seat headrest. Today's Telegraph goes in the footwell, with a foot high pile of Mails behind the passenger seat. Other titles are spread across the remainder of the back seat. So whilst your input is appreciated, the humour, well, isn't, as I was hopping for someone technical to advise about potential fuel savings Vs battery usage.

I recently got a taxi, a Prius surprisingly, that had done 280K and just had new batteries at a cost of £700. Obviously taxi mileage is considerably different to my usage and they won't use the battery as much as will, though a Prius in London would use the battery more I suspect.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 12:37
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - badbusdriver

Hmmm, moped. Have you seen The Times today or The Telegraph yesterday? Both higher than my passenger seat headrest. Today's Telegraph goes in the footwell, with a foot high pile of Mails behind the passenger seat. Other titles are spread across the remainder of the back seat. So whilst your input is appreciated, the humour, well, isn't, as I was hopping for someone technical to advise about potential fuel savings Vs battery usage.

I recently got a taxi, a Prius surprisingly, that had done 280K and just had new batteries at a cost of £700. Obviously taxi mileage is considerably different to my usage and they won't use the battery as much as will, though a Prius in London would use the battery more I suspect.

My reply did not (intentionally) contain any humour or sarcasm, but based on the limited info given in your post.

Info on the internet says an average newspaper page weighs 2.7g and the average newspaper has 40 pages (108g) giving a grand total of 10.8kg for 100 newspapers. Which isn't really that much.

If you want a better reply, give us better info.

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Tue 23 Nov 2021 09:36
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Manatee

Our community shop does about 100-120 papers on a Saturday when I do my shift. There are about 40 Mails, 30 Torygraphs, 20 Timeses (guess what sort of MP we have),

The Mail and Telegraph piles are each about 18" high, the Times a foot. There is certainly more than 10.8Kg of each of those, with all their weekend inserts. I'd guess we have well over 50Kg on a Saturday, it takes me four trips to the door to get all the bundles in.

You'd get them in a long Dutch box bike, but I wouldn't fancy a 22 mile ride at this time of year even on an electrically assisted one - especially while trying to keep all the papers dry in the rain. An electric cargo bike is £4K+.

Definitely a car job at the weekend.

I just weighed this morning's "i". 64 pages, 144g. I'd say that's one of the flimsier dailies. The weekend i was 250g, and that has no inserts. Well I learned something.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 12:20
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - moward

I think a hybrid could suit your type of work very well. Ours seems to excel when used for in town trips with lots of stop start driving. They are highly desired by the taxi trade for good reason.

A big advantage of the hybrid drivetrain is no clutch and little moving parts to wear out. However whilst the powertrain may well be in perfect working order on a 180k mile hybrid car, the suspension underneath (and drive shafts, CV joints, brakes etc) might not be and you should budget for overhauling it accordingly.

May be worth having a battery check carried out at a nearby Toyota dealer before committing too (although these are warrantied for up to 15 years meaning Toyota is pretty confident in their durability).

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 14:19
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - JonestHon

A car with the Atkinson cycle will suit this kind of paper run, however, you will need at least £5k to get you into a gen2 hybrid Auris with around 100k under it's belt.

As there was no estate version of that model it would have been less likely used as a taxi but do your checks carefully.

Or how about a Yaris or a Verso S? You will not get into a hybrid but it will not let you down with a manual gear box and most years will fit in your budget. The 1.33 stop-start models will do around 50mpg in town which is not too far off the hybrid variants.

The paper man in our street deliver the aforementioned journals in big bales of I think 50cm high, and he is certainly into his bangernomics.

From my observation he is changing his cars twice a year. This year alone he already had a 2009 Chevy Cruse and now a 2005 Astra van. Before that he had a mk1 Kia Rio and a string of various Fiestas.

Talking about problems with transporting paper and cost, saw this little clip which I think is interesting youtu.be/Xs0ilXPNHac

Edited by JonestHon on 21/11/2021 at 14:19

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 14:34
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Heidfirst

A car with the Atkinson cycle will suit this kind of paper run, however, you will need at least £5k to get you into a gen2 hybrid Auris with around 100k under it's belt.

As there was no estate version of that model it would have been less likely used as a taxi but do your checks carefully.

Sorry, but no hybrid estate version of the Auris Mk2? www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/toyota/auris/first-dr...w

I think that you mean no estate version of the gen. 1 Auris.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 20:51
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - JonestHon

Stand to correct, the mk1.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 14:38
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - SLO76
Unless you can find a lot more money forget a hybrid. You lack the funds to buy a reliable example. Stick instead with simple petrol engined Japanese models such as the Toyota Yaris, Mazda 2/3, Honda Jazz/Civic or perhaps a Nissan Note 1.4/1.6. Stick with petrol and above all keep it as simple as possible. At this money private sales offer the best cars but you need to take someone knowledgeable along with you.
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Sun 21 Nov 2021 18:57
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - paul 1963

I find your reply to BBD a little rude to be honest, let's face facts, you haven't got the money to consider a EV with any chance of it being reliable. take the advice of SLO and others and think again.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 20:34
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - moward

To be honest, I think SLO may have missed the point of what the OP is looking for. The OP already owns a small petrol engine car which is proving punishingly expensive to run. £240 per month for fuel is getting on for near £3k per year. A slightly newer small petrol vehicle isn't going to bring this down significantly. I think the OP is looking for a method to cut their fuel expenditure and wondered given their very particular duty cycle would a hybrid vehicle suit.

A few back of the envelope calcs assuming a 22 mile commute 5 days a week and petrol at £1.50 per litre would suggest the OP is averaging somewhere around 14 mpg. A hybrid even if it only manages 40mpg in this highly stop/start usage (a low bar) still cuts the fuel bill to around the 1k mark so a significant saving to be had.

So could a hybrid vehicle save them money, I think yes. Could this particular 180k mile example work out ok, who knows? If the battery was ok and the suspension wasn't too baggy, I’d give it some consideration but as always, it depends on condition.

The higher than average miles may be putting other folks off (irrationally maybe, Toyota hybrids are well known for their long term durability) so the OP could be looking at something of a relative bargain. On an anecdotal note, the dealer we service our CHR at has a customer with a MK2 Prius with a little over 300k miles on it, never an issue with it apparently.

OP, if you are seriously considering this change, I think you would do well to take it to a local Toyota garage for appraisal. They will be able to assess the battery condition for you which is probably your single biggest risk with such a vehicle.

Regards and best of luck whatever you decide to do.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 21:00
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - badbusdriver

A few back of the envelope calcs assuming a 22 mile commute 5 days a week and petrol at £1.50 per litre would suggest the OP is averaging somewhere around 14 mpg. A hybrid even if it only manages 40mpg in this highly stop/start usage (a low bar) still cuts the fuel bill to around the 1k mark so a significant saving to be had.

If the OP is getting 14mpg from a 1.2 Corsa he must be absolutely thrashing it. Hybrids don't offer much of an advantage over ICE if driven hard, they only 'perform' when driven in a manner to get the best out of them. In ideal conditions, a gently driven Toyota Prius might manage 30% better mpg than a gently driven 1.2 Corsa, but being thrashed that gap would shrink to less than 10%.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 21:13
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - moward

Rereading the OPs post, I spotted that they do this driving pattern 7 days a week rather than the 5 I assumed previously. Redoing my sums with this in mind gives an average of just under 20mpg, which is still pretty terrible whatever way you look at it. I'm guessing the near 100 stops where the engine is switched off wouldn't help much either.

Hybrids excel at this kind of stop start use. I've seen over 70mpg on our CHR when used for in town driving during rush hour. It seems the slower the average journey speed, the better it performs. I know the trip computer may not be totally accurate in this instance but even allowing for a 10% deviation, its still doing ok.

Only the OP knows what they really need. A 4k Prius is a gamble in my opinion, but one that can be mitigated by having it thoroughly checked over. If a Toyota garage was happy with it, I think I would be too.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 22:05
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Ian_SW

Is the car used for much else? If it's only this delivery run, plus a few other local trips, the OP could lease a small brand new electric car (Seat Mii, VW e-UP etc.) for about what the fuel is currently costing. On that type of stop-start trip, it would probably use less than £1 of electricity per day.

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 22:20
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - SLO76
“ To be honest, I think SLO may have missed the point of what the OP is looking for.”

I don’t think I have at all. I fully understand the economics of the OP’s situation, however their budget simply won’t buy a reliable Hybrid that would save them a substantial enough sum of money over a newer, lower mileage supermini. A worn out mega mile hybrid will save a marginal amount of fuel over a much lower mileage and more reliable petrol supermini.

There’s no way round this, either spend substantially more money, buy a newer supermini for £4k or keep running what you have and accept the occasional breakdown. Remember also that real life on road fuel economy on a typical hybrid is nowhere near the advertised figures never mind an elderly example with the guts of 200,000 miles up.

Now I’m not talking the Prius down, it’s a well proven and very robust car which is at its best doing a lot of local stop/start driving but in order to get a decent example with sensible miles that isn’t completely worn out you’ll need to beg borrow or steal at least another £3/4K. These really start at £6,500-£8,000 and I’d include the Auris Hybrid too as these are usually privately owned with less miles for similar money.

Edited by SLO76 on 21/11/2021 at 22:29

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Sun 21 Nov 2021 22:35
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Metropolis.
I think if you can somehow manage to up your budget to £6k, you will get a Nissan Leaf in fairly decent shape that will do everything you need at minimal expense, unless the battery dies.
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Sun 21 Nov 2021 22:52
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - bathtub tom

Perhaps a mobility scooter would be suitable? Save on tax and insurance as well!

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Mon 22 Nov 2021 07:41
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - SLO76
I think if you can somehow manage to up your budget to £6k, you will get a Nissan Leaf in fairly decent shape that will do everything you need at minimal expense, unless the battery dies.

Which would cost in excess of £6500 to replace. A cheap Nissan Leaf isn’t viable. Our head of engineering recently bought a 2015 example and it can barely break 60 miles of range and while this could well be enough for the OP it shows how rapidly the battery packs degrade on these things. At 6yrs old it’s almost a write-off.

Edited by SLO76 on 22/11/2021 at 08:16

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Tue 23 Nov 2021 00:36
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Metropolis.
And there I was thinking I had cracked it!

I do think a basic electric vehicle would suit the OPs intended use, the only variable is the taxi duties and what range is required for that.

A moped with a plus sized deliveroo style box on the back might work!
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Tue 23 Nov 2021 07:04
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - badbusdriver
And there I was thinking I had cracked it! I do think a basic electric vehicle would suit the OPs intended use, the only variable is the taxi duties and what range is required for that. A moped with a plus sized deliveroo style box on the back might work!

That's what I reckoned, but the OP clearly didn't agree!.

As far as I am aware, most newspapers are generally delivered by teenagers on foot (rather than by Vauxhall Corsa). Pretty sure that when my eldest son had his paper round, he was delivering 50 or more, though of course he wasn't walking 22 miles!. But I'm still unclear as to why a moped (with cargo box) couldn't be used to deliver 100 newspapers?. This electric job is (currently) well under £3k and while it says it can carry 200kg I suspect that includes the rider. Even so, that would mean a payload of around 115kg based on the weight of the average adult male in the UK.

model-30-cargo

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Tue 23 Nov 2021 10:58
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Andrew-T

<< As far as I am aware, most newspapers are generally delivered by teenagers on foot (rather than by Vauxhall Corsa). Pretty sure that when my eldest son had his paper round, he was delivering 50 or more, though of course he wasn't walking 22 miles!. But I'm still unclear as to why a moped (with cargo box) couldn't be used to deliver 100 newspapers? >>

Although fewer people now buy hardcopy news, papers have generally got bulkier over the years - especially at weekends. I wouldn't like the idea of 100 copies of The Saturday Torygraph on the back of a moped ....

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Tue 23 Nov 2021 09:32
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - mcintosh
And there I was thinking I had cracked it! I do think a basic electric vehicle would suit the OPs intended use, the only variable is the taxi duties and what range is required for that. A moped with a plus sized deliveroo style box on the back might work!

The Citroen Ami Cargo came to mind:

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/citroen/354915/citroen-ami-cargo-confirmed-uk-launch-2022

However, I suspect the 26 mile range would drop below 20 miles in winter and the price will be north of £6000 when it launches next year.

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Tue 23 Nov 2021 20:38
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Ethan Edwards

To be fair old some old early Leaf's (Leaves?) only had a 80 mile range when new.

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Tue 23 Nov 2021 09:17
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - Big John

So it'll undoubtedly be a Prius...newer model and scarily high mileage at 180K+ for £4K+.

Question is...will a Prius or any other hybrid cope with the intensity of my work?

To answer the original question - Would a Prius be good a lot's of stop/start around town driving, the answer is yes. I have a few friends who own them and they have generally been great with excellent real life economy.

HOWEVER - £4k is buying a Prius at near the end of its useful life with some potential large bills looming. Whilst very reliable some components are eye wateringly expensive - eg brake pedal/regen assembly. One issue a couple of people have had is battery drain issues - not the hybrid battery but the one to operate the car / open the doors etc - especially during lockdown. You could get lucky and get a fabulous one but at that pricepoint for a hybrid there is a reasonably high percentage chance you are buying another person's traded in problem.

Myself i'd keep it simple, reliable and small/light to mitigate fuel costs but don't buy a diesel. How about a Yaris 1.3? You would get a much better / newer one for the budget in question that could last years. Or possibly an Aygo or equivalent Peugeot with the great Toyota 1.0 engine.

Even Mrs BJ's 1.2 Panda is ok economy wise just generally driving locally/around town - usually mid 40's mpg

Edited by Big John on 23/11/2021 at 09:58

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Tue 23 Nov 2021 10:11
Toyota Prius - To hybrid or not? - pd

You can tell the condition of a Leaf battery just by looking at the dash display so you know what you are buying.

How they last seems to depend on how they are charged. I've seen 160k mile examples from 2014 with 90% battery left so they can do it. I've also seen 16 plate 20k examples with 70% battery left.

If you trickle charge them over night they seem to last well.

I'd also add that 2 years ago you could pick up a perfectly decent Prius for £4k. You can't now. 12 months ago you could also pick up a Leaf with a decent life left for £4k. The same cars will now be £6-7k and about £8k respectively. All cars have gone up but hybrid and electric ones even more than average.

Edited by pd on 23/11/2021 at 10:14

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