Was the Prius PHV worth it?

We’ve done 4000km in our plugin Prius and it’s time to go. How did we do? David Linklater reports.

Our time with the Toyota Prius PHV finished as it started – with power supply problems.

Back when we started life with our long-term Prius plug-in eight months ago, we had a faulty charging cable that was quickly replaced by Toyota Signature Class. As our time with the car drew to a close this year, the rubber outer on the power cord of the new box broke away, leaving some wires exposed.

So, this is motoring in the future: you don’t get your hands dirty, you just get frustrated when your device won’t charge. Actually, neither issue was a biggie and it’s worth pointing out that the only problems we had with our 2014 Toyota Signature Class vehicle were with the local stuff: the power cable (a Kiwi-supplied unit) and also the audio head unit fitted by Signature Class: the reversing camera quit at one stage (loose wire, fixed by the dealer) and the Bluetooth sound quality was always terrible. Other than that, it was satisfyingly smooth running. We used the car’s EV capability as much as possible and it was interesting to see the difference in range during the seasons. Through winter it struggled to achieve 18km on pure-electric power (and also ran the petrol engine quite a bit to warm the batteries, even in pure EV mode), but when summer rolled around the range was more like 22km. Or even 26km if you went without air conditioning. We didn’t.

In the end we covered exactly 4000km, 29 per cent of it on pure electric power and at an overall average of 3.8 litres per 100km.

Actually, we covered a lot more than that on electric power, because even when the EV battery is depleted, there’s a partition of battery reserved for HV (Hybrid Vehicle) operation – just like there is in a non-plug-in Prius. And of course it runs on pure battery power a lot of the time in traffic in that mode, but that doesn’t count towards your EV trip-total.

Anyway, was this EV thing worthwhile?

There are two ways of answering that: one emotional, one financial.

It’s satisfying and environmentally sound to use an EV for city running.

Even though we only managed 29 per cent of our total mileage on electric power, virtually all urban driving in the Prius was undertaken in EV mode. It was a great feeling. But did we save any money? Charging cost varies depending on your power price, but by our calculations the most it would cost to charge the PHV at home is $1.

That’s at peak rates, which is worst-case because our car was almost always powered-up overnight (that’s the idea with a plug-in hybrid).

Nor are we taking into account all those free charges we got at shopping centres.

But let’s say $1 anyway, just to be pessimistically fair.

So that 1180km of EV running cost a maximum of $59. It was actually a lot less; I’ll stop going on about that now.

The 2820km we did on petrol/ hybrid power cost $226 at current 91-octane prices: total cost $285.

But pretend we did that entire 4000km without EV assistance and the adjusted fuel economy figure would result in a fuel spend of $413.

So we saved $128 or reduced the ‘‘fuel’’ cost by 30 per cent.

It’d be much more if we hadn’t done so many longer trips, but then that’s the point of a plug-in hybrid: you never have to worry about range and you can use it as an actual car when and as you choose.

I’m not sure I can make a case for the PHV purely on financial grounds, because ‘‘normal’’ Prius models are plentiful on the used market and a good 2014 example costs thousands less than the benchmark $35,000 for a Signature Class PHV like ours.

So the emotional/ environmental has to be more important than the financial with this car.

But then that’s the case with so many plug-in hybrids.

Still, after 4000km my original hypothesis stands. If you really want to get into a used plug-in hybrid, the Prius PHV is a no-brainer.

Toyota New Zealand’s Signature Class programme gives you better cover than some new-car warranties: five years mechanical, full cover on the battery and Warrant of Fitness/roadside assistance.

The next best thing in terms of technology and ownership peace-of-mind is a brand-new Hyundai Ioniq plug-in and it’s $53,990. By the way, at a $7000 premium over the standard hybrid model, the same running-cost conundrum would apply to that car.

But back to Prius PHV, 2014-vintage: I’ll confess to a perverse pleasure in driving one of the nerdiest cars on the road (check out that two-tone colour scheme) and having to defend it so often in the face of disbelief from colleagues, friends and complete strangers. We bonded.

I also loved the fact it was such a rare car: everybody knows what a Prius is, but so very many were surprised that you could get one with a plug.

For now, this is also the most technologically advanced Prius you can buy from Toyota in NZ.

But not for long, as the very latest Prius Prime plug-in is slated for local launch this year.

Another reason why we feel good about spending this time with the PHV.

You probably wouldn’t look twice at our Prius. But if you did, you’d see a twist to a familiar recipe.

The ‘‘EV’’ sticker opened up a world of free access to transit lanes in Auckland.

We did 4000km in our Prius, 29 per cent of it in pure-ev mode.