Hi Scotty and Friends,
I'm a 22 year old student who is thinking of trading in my 2017 Ford Focus (Automatic) for a Hybrid vehicle. I'll soon be commuting all over the place, from home to school, work, and practice for sports. I know Scotty advises against older Hybrid's, so what are the best ones to get? I'm personally weary of Kia and Hyundai's products, and am looking more towards Toyota's and Hondas. I don't need anything large or fancy, just something to commute in that gets great mileage. Thanks!
If you are looking for hybrid, Toyota all the way. I love Honda. But Toyota hybrid technology is far better, IMHO.
Older Honda's use IMA, integrated motor assist. I liken this more like start stop technology, rather than what we think of as a hybrid like a Prius, although both are technically hybrids. It's not necessarily bad technology. It's just the Toyota's is a bit better.
Newer Honda's use a totally different system. It's basically an electric vehicle that gets its electricity with a gasoline generator. For most city driving, it will run off the electric motor. If you are on the highway, it is actually more efficient for the internal combustion engine to take over.
With that said, first choice Toyota, second choice newer Honda hybrid, third choice older Honda hybrid, and I wouldn't even consider the other makes.
Get the newest with the lowest mileage Prius you can afford.
Go with a Toyota Prius (newest with lowest mileage you can afford); however, if you intend to keep the vehicle well past 150,000 miles (say 150/200/250/300,000 miles) I strongly recommend you then just get a normal gasoline vehicle as hybrids can get expensive (replacing batteries, generators, other portions of the hybrid system), plus not as DIY friendly (don’t want to mess with high voltage lines without proper training) as a conventional gas and you’d need to take the vehicle to a hybrid specialist (mechanic) for troubleshooting the hybrid systems (harder to find those and cost more too).
I would probably go Toyota, Honda is good but I found that they have surprisingly bad resale value compared to their non-hybrid vehicles.
if you’re completely certain that you want a hybrid, get a Toyota CH-R hybrid, Corolla hybrid or a Prius. All other hybrids just aren’t that good.
if you’re not so sure on getting a hybrid:
As someone who is a college student and commutes a lot, and owns a Focus.
When I calculated what would be more economical, i found that with my yearly mileage (about 10k miles) getting a hybrid as opposed to keeping my current daily would save me only about 75 bucks a month.
when I looked at this, I decided to add 75 bucks to my fuel budget and get a Volvo 🤣
truth is that the focus is so efficient, I get about 35mpg (that’s what I get out of it during my commutes - which are going about 50 with traffic lights every couple of miles, not optimal at all for efficiency) out of mine that getting a hybrid that will be able to do 45 mpg instead just didn’t make any financial sense at all when you factor in purchase price and the depreciation…
As everyone else is saying get the Toyota. The best is new for a hybrid. If getting used make sure to buy one with low mileage
