Off Topic Hybrid cars

For anyone who may have an interest in these, or simply wonder what they are like I will give a quick summary of my family's initial impression and provide occasional updates on experience

Why have we got one? Well, our car conked out over a month ago and the poor thing (plus Amanda and yours truly) had to be transported to the garage. On arrival BMW gave us a car to drive around in whilst they analysed the problem. In short, it was going to be a very costly affair, enough for us to say "**** that for the time being". So we decided to look around for a more economical car and try out leasing with no advance rental. We ended up settling for a Toyota Yaris Hybrid. The plan being that the money we save on fuel and insurance would go a fair way to paying the rental and provide us with worry free driving for 2-3 years; and avoid having to fork out extortionate repair costs when we have plenty of other things competing for our limited resources. Being a new model one wasn't readily available but the Toyota garage lent us a car while we waited for the arrival of the new one. About 6 weeks later we now have our new car.

Initial impressions. Well, we picked it up Friday night and found it rather hilarious, if not freaky. You press the start button, put it into drive, release the hand break and put your foot on the accelerator. However, the car hasn't started yet, has it? Oh it's moving; but there is no noise. It is weird. There is a fascinating display that shows you how it is working as you drive along. If I watch that I will end up in a ditch, best left to the passenger to see what we can learn about how to get the best fuel consumption. The manual is all in French so haven't a clue what's what (apart from the obvious). The garage is trying to obtain an English manual. Performance-wise it is surprisingly nippy but the most noticeable thing is the silence when you pull away and when pulling up at a junction/traffic light; there is just no sound of an engine

The test. The test for us is how much we save on fuel as that was the driving force behind the decision. The insurance is a definite saving as we will drop the insurance on our "out of action " car. At 35 Euros per month, fully comp, any driver and the only excess being 250 Euros if we have an accident that is effectively our fault (recovery and immediate replacement is covered by Toyota within the rental agreement). So, the all in monthly outlay (inc insurance) is about 285 Euros. I reckon, by the time we add the fuel costs, it won't be much (if any) more than the fuel and insurance cost on the car that is now out of commission. That's the plan and, fingers crossed, it will pan out that way

If you got this far, hope it isn't too boring. Being a weird experience I thought I would share as it may be useful when considering your next car

 

Getting on for 8 months now so a quick update. Basically, loving it. There are some things I miss, and wouldn't want to go without next time, but these are nothing to do with the hybrid experience.

On the hybrid experience, the fuel consumption has halved so we are happy with that; but I would be looking for one with a longer range on the battery. With this hybrid you have no control over when the battery drives the engine (other than the way you drive and braking). Having experienced electric, ideally I would now like to be able to do a whole journey on the battery and just have the fuel as a back up

 

I had a Toyota Auris which was good although as you need to drive it for a bit to charge the battery I couldn't make full use of the electric. I do lots of short journeys so it never gets the chance to charge the battery to run on pure electric. I'd like to get a plug-in hybrid as I could really maximise the running cost savings on one of these, just need to convince my new boss to get me one!

 

The brilliant inventor and industrial design engineer, Sir James Dyson, and his team, are working on it, Ron, and they will come up with the best all-electric car yet. Wait and see!

Not much on the electric car project in this clip, but I do know his team are concentrating on the battery factor first, naturally, and, as I said, they will develop the best one yet, I am sure.

 

I should say that the halving of the fuel cot cannot be totally attributed to the hybrid. My daughter has the previous year's non-hybrid model and I reckon we could have saved a fair bit with that.

Around the town and in traffic jams it is great because it is always in EV mode, as it is when going downhill. Going uphill it is always in Power mode

 

What's the cost of fuel in France Ron?

 

oh dear. I never look at the price Cyc. I don't have any option but to get the fuel and I just put x Euros worth in the tank. My wife often refers to the difference between prices at various petrol stations. I remember it being about 1.20 or so a litre but I gather it's about 1.56 now at our local supermarket although at the Intermarches it is usually available at about 5 to 6 cents a litre less than anywhere else. Total garages are the most expensive around here

 

We pay the equivalent of about a Euro per litre.

 

My car is my comfort blanket.

 

;

Me, neither, we've been without one for a few years now. Public transport very good down here, majority of young Germans are exceptionally polite and caring for older people. Sorry, but cannot honestly say that for eastern European/Arab-looking people on trams and busses especially, many are just awful, arrogant too. U-Bahn/S-Bahn not so bad though.

 

I think some do it for a living Oddy. There was one on the news the other day who gets £100 per day just begging. Doesn't sound like a long term option to me

 

Neither of us has ever seen begging on the trains here, Oddy, but there's plenty of it on the streets. It seems they have permanent pitches, so it seems like an organised thing? Around where we live it is the same people in the same places most days of the week, many of them are able-bodied men. It certainly is a scary thought to live like that.

 

My son tells me that when he was touring Australia (for a year) there was a place near Sydney where some of the beggars were business men who had million dollar villas on the beach (thinks it was Manly Beach) who just made themselves look poor and came out begging (presumably out of boredom. Apparently some of these beggars were minted.

He wouldn't give beggars a penny. But recalls (also whilst in Australia) when they (him and his mates) went into a MacDonalds (or equivalent) just before closing and noticed all the unsold food. They asked what they were going to do with it and were told it would be chucked. So they filled up bags with the food and went down to where there were loads of beggars and fed them all. They were very grateful and obviously poor beggars

 

Bought some petrol yesterday Cyc. It wasn't 1.50 odd; it was 1.42. Still expensive compared to where you are

 

After nearly 2 years, time for another update. My views on the hybrids haven't changed since my 4 month update. Our biggest concern is the "mileage"; we have already reached the "mileage" allowed over the 3 year contract. It is very difficult for us to keep within the contract limits. However, we have had 2 services and they don't cost anything which is a good saving. At any stage though we can hand it back and as long as we stay with the same company, they tend to overlook the excess "mileage". There is the option to buy it at the end of the 3 year term but general opinion is that it's better to sell it privately and then buy it

Would we lease again?. Well, we did consider that next time, instead of leasing, buy it on finance to take out the concern on "mileage". However, we calculated that we could effectively take that out of the equation at a cost of around €40pm which is more than outweighed by the cost free servicing and peace of mind regarding any unexpected breakdown. Also, if the theory of selling the car to pay off the lease company is valid, it provides the option at any time to sell the car and lease another; the option to upgrade is there after 2 years also. On balance we are currently of the view that we would lease again, taking account of the additional €40 pm that would need to be set aside to cover excess "mileage"

If anything crops us to cause us a re-think I'll post another update

 

Sorry I mentioned this on another thread. Just bought a new car and considered both hybrid and electric and ended up buying another petrol car. On environmental issues the dealer I bought from was telling me which shocked me that new euro 6 diesels produce less emissions than a hybrid or electric car and there area lot of myths being bandied about on the environmental impact of diesel/ petrol cars and things are not likely to improve for at least 30 years.