Hybrid car - worth it?

In My Humble Opinion
81

This.

It’s a general rule of queueing theory that mixing short = quick jobs and long = slow jobs is a recipe for poor service. To be sure the store also has to trade off available real estate. But putting both dispensers in the same spot means only a vehicle which takes both “fuels” will benefit from their co-location. And only to the degree they can upload enough electricity to matter in the time it takes to refill the gasoline/diesel tank(s). Which ain’t long and so ain’t much electricity,

Said another way …
A dual-powered vehicle will be occupying space somewhere on the lot the whole time it’s obtaining either “fuel”. Any time it’s occupying one “pump” while not taking on that pump’s product is a loss to the store.

I’d think of a different model. Consider the large truck stops along the interstate. They tend to have 2 sides to their lot: one for big rigs and one for ordinary vehicles. And also two sides for their interior: one for the car drivers with a convenience store with grab’n’go snacks, the other for the pro drivers with showers, lounges, perhaps a real diner, a trucker toystore, etc. T be sure either group of customers is welcome in either half, but the interior layout has that two-entrances-for-two-populations feel.

I could easily see hybrid fuel stops developing similarly, with one area with electric dispensers and a diner, some sort of entertainment arcade, etc., and on the other side gas pumps and a Quick-e-Mart.

82

This would concern me. I’m only 6’ tall, but i have short legs and an upper body like someone much taller. My wife’s old RAV4, the old boxy style, was just fine, but I’ve seen a number of redesigns of the car since then and I’m sure they didn’t increase space for a hybrid.

83

Smacking your head on the top while getting in, were about the only problem my six-ish foot, long-torsoed self had with either the Camry or Prius. It’s a problem, and I can see that really annoying people You do have to consciously bend a little to get your head under the doorframe. There’s headroom inside the cabin, IME, when you do though.

EDIT: TriPolar, I’ve not tried the new RAV4, but your situation sounds almost exactly like mine.

84

Tesla superchargers are occasionally located in gas station parking lots, for example this one near Trinidad, Colorado. A typical 20 minute bathroom and snack stop on a family road trip will often be all the charging needed. It isn’t necessary to charge to full each time, just enough to make it to the next charging stop.

It is a wise move on the convenience store’s part, because they’re not making any money on the gas, but rather on the in-store purchase. The shouldn’t care why people are stopping in the parking lot, just that they want chips and soft drinks when they do.

85

Have there been studies on how long a “typical” stop is going to be as long as you’re not deliberately not caring about time? I’ve timed my own stops and of those that I have timed they rarely exceed 10 minutes and that’s including time getting off and on the Interstate, which would cut into that supposed 20 minutes. The only time the actual stop itself would take 20 is if my bathroom break took unexpectedly long. If it were delayed more than that for any reason I’d feel like a dumbass sitting around doing nothing.

86

I have taken only one trip that required a charging stop (I took the trip because I was curious about how this all would go) I stopped for about 40 minutes. There was a restaurant nearby, but I wasn’t hungry. I used the time stretching my legs, checking emails and browsing the internet. I wouldn’t want to do it every day during my commute, but once or twice a year isn’t bad at all.

87

Interestingly, California offers both “Historical Vehicle” and “Horseless Carriage” plates. The Historical Vehicle ones come with pretty much the restrictions you described – vehicle must be I think at least 25 years old and there are limitations on usage. Without looking it up I have no idea how the Horseless Carriage plates are different.

And it does seem very strange that something like a 1995 Camry would technically qualify for such a plate. At least out here where cars don’t rust, I still see cars that old being used as daily drivers on a fairly regular basis. It kind of feels like the age requirements haven’t caught up to the fact that modern cars last much longer than they did when those laws were written.

88

All good info. Thanks for the insights.

I’m a bit like @Ludovic; I start the stopwatch about halfway up the offramp before I get much below 60 and stop it once I’m accelerating past 60 down the onramp. In between it’s park at the pump, start the fuelling, take a pee, buy a coffee or soda only if there’s no line to pay, finish fuelling & drive off. 6 minutes on the stopwatch is excellent time, 10 is grumble-grumble, and 15 is burnin’ daylight, dag nabbit!

But that’s absent kids or women with short range bladders. For sure one can take it more leisurely.

This part was intrigueing but makes sense:

I can sort of see wanting to stay nearly fully charged. So leave home full, then hopscotch every e.g. 100 miles from charger to charger, refilling back to 100% at each point. That way any unexpected problem with a charger downtrack is less likely to leave you in a real crack. So you make more frequent but shorter stops rather than going your full e.g. 300 mile range then needing a single longer stop to replenish to 100% for the next 300 mile jaunt.

When I road-trip I’m usually good for almost 800 miles a day: 10 hours at 80+ mph average, and about 30 minutes of total stopped time for food, fuel, & bathrooms. That takes just shy of 11 hours and gets through 3-1/2 tanks of fuel; I’ll top-up that half-tank before setting out tomorrow on the next leg.

89

You’re going to have to do your own research on that. I’m basing this on my own anecdotes, because that is all I care about. I specifically said “family road trip,” because I’m sure that one or two adults will be able to be very efficient at short stops. Add another adult or two, some kids, and all of the sudden time slips away.

I’ve only ever taken road trips in gas cars, and any time there has been anybody in the back seat has meant 20-30 minute gas stops, at a minimum. Which adult takes which child to the bathroom, who takes the child afterwards so the adult can pee. Who wants a drink or snack, who wants a drink or snack now that they’ve seen other people with drinks and snacks? Who doesn’t like their drink and wants to trade and get another one? Who has to pee now that we’ve been here for 30 minutes? The last trip was only three hours, and still had a 40 minute gas stop.

Maybe you can wrangle children and inlaws with military precision, but not my family. The only difference to me will be that I can go to the bathroom immediately after plugging in, instead of having to gas up and move the car first.

90

I believe the sweet spot is to charge from 20 to 80 percent of capacity. After 80% charging is much slower.

So, if you have 350 miles of range, you would probably start completely topped off, and try to charge back up to 300 or so along the way.

91

High mileage Tesla drivers minimize charging time by driving the “bottom half” of the battery. Try to arrive at a supercharger with as little power remaining as possible, and then only charge for as long as it takes to get to the next supercharging stop. That means charging will be happening as fast as possible at every stop. On a Model 3 using 250kW superchargers you could add 2 hours of drive time in a 10 minute charge session.

A better route planner is one example of a website that can help you plan that kind of a trip.

Maybe someday, when travel is a thing again.

92

Quick update: Lots of online research, and it’s nearly impossible to find out “dealer invoice” price (which I know isn’t their true cost, but it’s a start). The few places that purport to help you find that out: one of them displays numbers which are considerably higher than what I’ve been quoted by other dealers - then push LEASE LEASE LEASE all over the place, and all the others demand your contact info and don’t pony up with any real information - though I am now getting spammed by emails from every Honda dealership within 75 miles.

I’m leaning toward the Touring model (top trim line) because after a lot of review, there is one feature on that that I’d really like, that would cost a good chunk of the price difference to install on the next one down.

Of course I suspect that any price negotiation I do would be only for models on the lot. And apparently nobody here gets any color other than gray. I’d probably have to pay close to list price for something difference. Boo.

Oh, and “destination fees”??? That’s a synonym for “we’re lying about the car’s price”.

93

I tried to raise a stink about the destination fee last time I bought a car. Non negotiable.

94

Well all righty… worth it or not, we did the deed. Wound up getting a white (sigh) CRV Hybrid, touring model.

When testing driving, we couldn’t figure out how to test out the front parking sensor - so finally at the dealership I stood in front of the car as my husband slowly moved the car forward. He did say it beeped. I later told him that this now means he can’t claim “it was an accident” if he ever runs me down.

1 hour to fill out paperwork and do the test drive, 2.5 hours to do the FINAL paperwork.

Did we get a stellar deal? Probably not “end of year, desperate to get rid of it” deal but I happened to have an emailed offer from another dealer for about 4500 off of list price “plus destination fees etc”. When I showed that offer to the people this evening… well, I didn’t scroll down to the “plus destination fees” part… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:…

So they matched that. Then there were dealer prep fees which are a scam but we’ve never gotten around them before - and we figured it was offset by the savings on the destination fee. And the 600 dollar “appearance package” that was already ON the damn thing (pinstriping… locking nuts… and nitrogen in the tires). We got them to remove almost all the cost for those useless options.

The last 20+ minutes were a VERY hard sell on the various “shell out thousands and get coverage for All This Stuff”… which we politely refused, and refused, and refused. I think we would have until we get them the rest of the funds to change our minds on that. I promised to get that to them tomorrow - forgetting it was Veteran’s Day and, well, the banks are closed…Whoops. Well, they’re holding onto a check from us for 25% down on the thing.

I’ll need to spend about an hour sitting in it, figuring out all the electronic gizmos. They actually offered to do all the setup for Android Auto etc. for us but I suspect I can manage the deed.

Oddities / annoyances so far, in the 10 miles we’ve driven it:

  • When it’s in electric mode, there’s a high pitched whine. I expect we’ll get used to that
  • The gear changes are done via buttons on the dashboard. Except putting it in reverse, which entails pulling on a tab. We’ll get used to it.
  • Visiblilty when glancing over my shoulder is much poorer due to the thick pillars. Basically any new SUV is like that, which is baffling. The blind spot warning lights will hopefully mitigate that.
  • The turn signals are the newfangled improved style: when you move the stalk to the turn position, they continue blinking. When you return the stalk to the center postion… it STILL CONTINUES BLINKING. I haven’t quite figured out the arcane series of movements and incantations to make it stop blinking.

Unexpected hilarity: the vin is something like 123FART23blahblah… My husband looked at that and said “I thought this was supposed to be a LOW EMISSIONS vehicle!”. The sales person snickered - and said that all the hybrids she’s written up lately have the FART in the VIN. Bizarre.

The rest of the VIN comes pretty close to spelling HOLE shortly after that - so if we ever give the car a name… it will have to be FARTHOLE. (“4th grade called. They want their jokes back…”).

The salesclerk is younger than our Civic.

We now own 3 cars (not for much longer… that Civic is getting donated to the school district as soon as we can swing it). Right now, the average age of our household fleet is now 12 years old (22 + 14 + 0 = 36). It will soon be 7

95

Congratulations! I hope you’re happy with your new car.

A bit surprising they made you sit in the dealership. Our dealership drove the vehicle to us as a free option, citing COVID. A few minutes scrawling out my signature on the trunk lid, and that was that. Handled everything else over the phone and .pdfs sent back and forth. Ridiculously convenient, and light years ahead of my last dealership purchase, 20 years ago.

Ours was a new to us car though, and we didn’t have financing, so those are some big differences.

You do get use to the weird noises. Especially the gurgling, humming, and other stuff it’ll do, even after you turn it off. Be sure not to cover the battery vents, if your car has them.

The turn signal you describe is peculiar. What do you mean it won’t turn off when you return the stalk to neutral? What’s the point of changing that?

96

I read the suggestion that one way to cut short the hard sell is to say upfront that you’ll give them a good result on the manufacturer survey if they end it quickly. (Apparently with these surveys, anything less than a ten out of ten is considered a failure.)

97

I got so tired of the dealer rep dragging out a bunch of charges (security system, phone charger, destination charge etc) when I bought my KIA that I finally said “Look, I don’t care how you do it, but I will pay no more than $X out-the-door.” They said no. I said sorry we couldn’t make a deal, I will go see [the other dealer a few miles down the freeway]. The sales rep left (I did a test drive at my house because of COVID). I counted to 20 before he pulled back in with a price that was $250 less than what I’d specified.

Trying to wear you down over every little charge is a game that I won’t play again.

98

Yes, I have a dealer we have returned to several times for various purchases. I gave the back room guy a really poor rating due to the obnoxious hard sell. The sales guy later told me the whole team got docked on their commission as a result. That was valuable information. (and not fair at all)

So the next time I was buying a car there (our Prius Prime) I told the salesman that the sale was conditioned on the guy in the back taking no for an answer when I walked in and if he asked again the deal was off. He was surly the whole time, but I got out quick.

99

They really tried to guilt us on the survey (which we have not yet been solicited) - like, the salesperson said that if we downgraded the admin part of it (which she had nothing to do with), it would affect HER. And the guy trying to upsell the extended warranty said he gets graded on the volume of such things he manages to push.

Not.

My.

Problem.

I think I’ll simply refuse to do the survey, and explain why. Your remuneration should depend on genuinely good service, not guilting a customer into lying.

The turn signal thing is something I’ve spotted on numerous rental cars, so it’s not a Honda peculiarity - and it is baffling. I could almost understand the sort where you push the stalk to signal left, and it doesn’t click into place but returns to center - then you push it once again to turn it off. The “push, and it locks into place, but then you manually center it and it shuts off” is the approach most cars have had for decades. This “push, it locks into place, you manually center it, and it KEEPS ON GOING” is the new and very annoying variant - which as noted is not just Honda.

We might have been able to do the deal entirely remotely but I don’t think we’d have been able to negotiate as much as we did in person. Plus this way I was able to show them the email from another dealer with the lower price (that did NOT include the destination fee). Also, we really did need to test drive it: we own a CRV already but we had never tried a hybrid.

One thing I do feel bad about: I had told them I would stop by the bank today to pick up the check, and bring it straight to them.

Today is Veteran’s Day. As in. the bank is CLOSED. Whoopsie. I’ll have to do it tomorrow.

100

What the heck is it with car dealerships and these surveys? Apparently even the service departments are doing it now, too. I had my car serviced at the dealership recently. Afterwards they sent an email asking me to fill out a survey. I ignored it, like I do with most survey requests. I got a second email which I also ignored. I thought that would be the end of it. But today they actually called me and left a voicemail asking me for feedback on their employee. Why are they so insistent that I give them feedback?