DO I DRIVE ENOUGH TO SUPPORT A HEALTHY HYBRID BATTERY?
Scotty,
Enjoy your show!
I'm retired and my yearly mileage is typically 8000 miles. I'm looking at a new hybrid Rav 4 . What would be the minimum mileage driven yearly to keep a hybrid battery functioning properly? (If I had to crank it on a regular basis just to keep it charged and healthy should I really get a hybrid?)
Thanks, Tony
That's plenty enough to keep it good
My question would be, why do you want a hybrid, and driving pretty low miles?
I had a 2013 prius when I was driving 25-30k miles a year and it was great. I saved a lot of money on gas over my suv, like $7-8k in a 100k miles. I sold it though because I was only driving it a fraction what I used to, and a hybrid battery will slowly die over time, driven or not.
Also consider that you will only be saving about $1200 over a 100k miles driving the hybrid rav 4 at 41mpg vs the regular rav 4 at 35 mpg.
Just some things to consider.
Thanks for that comment nlord. The 8000 miles yearly was a low case scenario. I plan to travel quite a bit, and on a fixed income any meaningful reduction in gas bills helps. But at 69 years of age, I simply wanted to know if the low mileage (8000 yearly) would be enough to support hybrid technology should my health prevent me from having the mileage I had hoped to put on the Rav 4. I appreciate your thoughts. I'm still chewing on it.
Here is some more to chew on, I did the same thing when buying and selling my prius 😊
If you start driving it about 20k miles a year, after about 200k miles and ten years, you will break even on buying the hybrid, because it costs more than a regular. If you take car of a regular one, you will almost certainly save more money than the hybrid. Also consider that hybrids have lower resale value because they have more components that can go bad.
Don't get me wrong, toyota makes an excellent hybrid, but the numbers don't add up to really saving any money over the short run, or long run.
Feel free to check my math though.