This passed in California, but it won’t go into effect until approved by Washington. BTW, hybrids qualify by getting a given gas mileage, and Ford SUV hybrids don’t make it.
A guy from Toyota came to an IEEE meeting I went to a while ago, with a Prius. I agree that now you’re unlikely to make back the difference in money, but he said that they are doing hybrid versions of their entire product line, so the price should be heading down in the next couple of years.
I’m 5’4’’ and my husband is 6’2’’ - we’ve driven the 2003 Civic Hybrid and Prius. They weren’t that comfortable, but … I had a chance to ride in a 2005 Prius and I really liked it. The owner is getting good mileage, and they 2005 design has a fold down seat and hatch back option - making it comparable to an SUV for part time short distance hauling.
In Florida, you can also get an HOV sticker and drive it in the HOV lanes with only one occupant in the car.
I’m holding out for a hybrid SUV or station wagon (oooh Accord Station Wagon), so we repaired our little meep meep to eke a few more years out of it.
My Jeep has this feature. It’s too early for me to tell how well it works since I just got the thing, but I can tell you that I can’t tell when it’s only running on 4 cylinders. The transition from 4 to 8 is milliseconds. So far the gas mileage has been better than I expected from a 330 HP vehicle.
I live in the Detroit area and have many friends in the automotive industry. From what they tell me the Escape Hybrid is the real deal. Some may be afraid to by a domestic hybrid due to quality concerns but Ford went the extra, extra mile to make sure this vehicle is a success. Bill Ford Jr., the Chairman, is somewhat an environmentalist and the hybrid was a pet project. Ford actually withheld the launch an entire year to get the bugs out, and they have. A very close friend test drove an Escape Hybrid for a week 6 months before they were available to the public and came away very impressed. I know a week isn’t much, but this guy is an automotive journalist and has at times been pretty hard on Ford, i.e. he’s not a “friend of the family”.
Here is a review of the Escape Hybrid that may help, there are others at Edmunds and Autobytel.
http://www.automedia.com/autoReviews/2005/ford/escape/rts20041101eh.asp?affid=
My main problem with the Escape was that it wasn’t ready when I was :p. Additionally, from what I’d read they were using the Toyota V1.0 version of “hybridity” which was already behind what Honda was putting in their latest hybrid cars (not the Insight).
Addtionally, the Escape, over all, is just “meh” with me. I liked it, and was not happy when we couldn’t get one (yet) simply because of the squee factor of having it, but once Honda came out with the Oliphant, I figured I’d wait until they hybridized it.
I also considered the Rav 4, but I’m considering something of a family vehicle I can fit three carseats in without going to a Minivan. The standard Accord I have now can handle it, but hopefully by the time we get to that point there will be a mid-sized SUV out there (or minivan if I must - don’t like them much) that will meet my needs.
For now, I’ve got time. The Accord runs well and we just paid out the equivalent of three car and insurance payments to update the Meep Meep (a Stanza) so we can wait until 2008 or 2009 when there is more choice and less of a waiting list.
Should accident or other something change it, we’ll asses our financials at that point. But I’m also now not quite as eager to be a pioneer as I was - gotta get the kids around and I’ll let someone else work out the bugs.
I just bought a 2005 Prius last week after spending almost a year on the waiting list. Yes, I had to pay MSRP, but I’m happy with it so far.
As others have said, you have to adjust your driving to get the most out of the car. I previously drove a 5-speed Audi A4. As you can imagine, my driving style wasn’t the best for a hybrid. But, I’m adjusting. The real-time fuel consumption gauge helps speed that process along. I haven’t done much highway driving, but in the city, I’m getting about 40 mpg and that keeps going up as I get more sensitive to the car.
I hope to save money with this car, but that wasn’t my only reason to buy it. I want to support the movement away from fossil fuels and I thought this was a good way to do so. I’ll certainly save gas money over my A4. My insurance is actually a bit lower than it was for the A4. Though, as hlanelee pointed out the repair costs are unknown and that is reflected in a pretty high comprehensive coverage cost relative to my previous vehicle. Plus, Georgia gives you a break on registering a hybrid. And, of course, there’s the federal tax credit.
Overall, it’s a good deal for me. The only thing that worries me is battery life. The 2005 has an 8 year warranty on the battery. I figure I’ll probably trade this one in on the newer version around then.
I wonder if they are kept in decent enough shape, if there will be an after market for older cars with new batteries.
In some ways, an Escape Hybrid is the best deal over its conventional counterparts. If you want to drive an SUV, an Escape Hybrid will give you all the advantages of an SUV with the mileage of a compact car.
But cars like the Prius aren’t THAT much better than the competition - competition being compact cars with low power. Also, because the compact cars already get good mileage, an increase in absolute terms doesn’t make as much different in percentage terms. For example, going from 30 mpg to 40 mpg is not nearly as radical improvement as going from 10mpg to 20 mpg.
But if you like the idea of a hybrid, go for it! There’s nothing wrong with buying a car because it matches your values. No one asks if buying a Mustang instead of a Focus is a smart thing to do financially, because we understand that it’s simply not a financial decision - it’s an aesthetic decision. You buy a Mustang because you want to drive a Mustang. The same should be true for a hybrid. If you’re an environmentalist, or if you like the technology, or even if you just like the cool electronic gauges, that’s a good enough reason to buy a Prius or other hybrid (I’ve heard that driving them can be like playing a video game - the real time displays of battery charge-discharge leads you to play around to try to optimize your driving, and it’s fun).
I like hybrids. They’re the wave of the future. Someone’s got to be an early adopter - might as well be you! Might even be me.
has anyone liked the VUE?
Why not buy a diesel? You’ll get better fuel economy, better reliability, and better performance.
The Volkswagen Jetta TDI costs around $20,000 and gets 38 mpg city, 46 mpg highway.
The only valid reason to buy a hybrid over a diesel (now) is to support the technology. You’re not saving any money, or the environment.
Howdy neighbor! 
I work for Ford and was very closely following the launch, since I’ve been waiting to buy the Escape Hybrid for four years. Been salivating ever since the announcement that we’d be releasing the new hybrid would be the Escape, but I just bought a different SUV. Because the warranty numbers on the hybrid suck bad, we’re having major tranny issues and I just didn’t want to take a fifty percent chance that my new vehicle would be spending more time at the dealership than in my driveway. Hugely disappointing, since we did spend so much time and money on the launch but there ya go.
Go talk to some of the shop personnel at one of your thirty-one Metro Detroit Ford Dealers, they’ll tell you how many they get back daily.
As I said above: Emissions.
Very interesting; thanks for the link.
Looked at the Echo and the Prius last year. Bought a Jetta.
Little trunk space. Huge deal for me as I need to carry golf clubs and a golf cart. This pretty much sunk the idea. I understand this is changing.
I had heard (although I hadn’t seen the link) that these weren’t great in cold climates.
Concerns about battery disposal. Emissions suck. Hazzardous waste isn’t much better.
Year long waiting list and had to pay over MSRP.
The Jetta was on the lot, had a bunch of trunk space, got them down to a reasonable amount of money, gets decent gas milage and has a predictible track record.
You should start re-evaluating your faith then, as near as I can tell, the Hemi MDS system is getting rave reviews from pretty much everyone. It took third on Ward’s 10 Best Engines list - behind the Audi 4.2 V8 and the BMW 3.2 I-6. Autotrend is also a big fan.
Near as I can tell, the consensus is pretty much that Chrysler nailed it on this one.
You can’t really consider Chrysler to be part of the “Big Three” anymore. They’re basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daimler-Benz.
The Chrysler 300 is basically a previous-generation Mercedes E-Class with new sheet metal. And the Hemi’s “multi-displacement system” has been around in Mercedes V12s for almost a decade.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just thought I’d point where Chrysler’s technical success is coming from.
The 2004+ Prius definitely has plenty of cargo space. The hatch back makes loading big stuff easy.
Even with cleaner fuel, diesels still have worse emissions than regular cars (and the Prius is much better than regular cars).
People DO get 55+ MPG. I got 49 MPG 99% on the interstate last Memorial Day.
Mileage is worse in the winter (winter gas has less BTU / gal, and what the article says)
When you do your calculations, if you use real world mileage of the Prius, use the real world mileage of the comparison car.
See people’s mileage at www.priuschat.com. Or check http://john1701a.com/
Brian