So I was out Prius shopping and...

Both are, just the prime can do electric only first 30 miles or something like that before switching to hybrid where the regular Prius is only hybrid, no electric only mode. Had a Audi A3 etron that did the same but it was 40miles and the most uncomfortable car since my YJ when I was 16. Cool car, good acceleration, okay infotainment system, quiet road noise but terrible on anything past 70 miles which is what I bought it for. You can change the suspension, steering wheel etc but nothing was good for long hauls.

 

I drove a Prius before I got my Taco, darn thing got 50 mpg all day long. I figure I'm good for years at 20 mpg with the Taco cause my decade average mpg is still high!

 

Corolla has a CVT. Toyota is probably better than anyone else at these but they seem to be more fragile than a traditional auto. Maybe down the road they won't be.

They've been absolute crap in Nissan cars, which has given them a bad name.

 

I bought my 2005 Prius new. I have 220K miles on it now. Replaced the battery at 203K. I expect I could get 300K-350K if I wanted to, and I know of at least one guy who's gone 500K. It's been very reliable so far, and that is the general track record with the 2nd gen. I don't think the newer generations are as reliable or have as much luck with the battery, but they should get slightly better MPG and have better acceleration. I usually get around 42 MPG and will go > 400 miles between fill-ups. I'm in Texas, so the A/C is running most of the time.

FYI on the battery - when I bought the car in 2005, I asked about battery replacements and was told they were about $3000. Fast forward to 2018 when I did replace it - I found a company that specialized in hybrid battery replacements. They had refurbished ones cheap enough ($1200), but I decided I keep the car longer and went with their suggestion on a new battery. They came out to my house and replaced it onsite with a Toyota OEM battery for $2300.

 

Yes, hybrids with standard lifespans make a significantly smaller environmental impact — read the multi-year, deep-dive UCSUSA study that looks at the cradle-to-grave fabrication and use footprints of hybrids and electrics compared to trad ICEs, and also allows you to understand those numbers in context with where you get your energy from. A plug-in or full-electric in my region with my grid might be dirtier than your hybrid or electric if we use coal-fired power plants here but you use hydroelectric their, etc., etc. So check out those studies.

Short answer: unless you total your Tesla in year one or your hybrid before, say, month six, yes, it makes a significant difference.

Who cares? I sure didn’t care about this sort of thing at all in the 90s when I was getting 15 mpg driving my then-new Mazda pickup like a hooligan. Since that time I’ve read a lot, lived in and visited some of the smoggiest places on the planet, and decided to give a shit.

Edit: spelling

 

People buy hybrids because they want to. I don't think the thought process goes much further than that. I get the appeal that a hybrid "might" be cleaner, and will probably get better gas millage.

Speaker as a consumer of automobiles. I don't want a hybrid, and see no reason to consider purchasing one.

 

I own a 06 Xb great car for a commuter and only paid 1700 for it runs like a champ and Ac is cold AF