Autos

What Makes Hybrid Cars Cost-Effective?

Ever since their introduction in the market, Hybrid car purchases have seen a continual positive growth trend, fueled in part by the increasingly environmentally conscious purchase pattern in the American and global markets. However, what has also provided impetus to this purchase pattern is the fuel-efficiency and thereby cost-effectiveness of owning a Hybrid vehicle. Let’s take a better look at what makes Hybrid cars more cost-effective.

Fuel-Efficiency

At the current state of development hybrid vehicles are expected to reduce the consumption of fuel by up to 50%. Take for example the Toyota Prius hybrid, each new generation of the car has seen an ~11% improvement in fuel efficiency, if Toyota is able to continue maintaining this level of fuel efficiency in the upcoming models of the Prius, we can extrapolate that this will reduce overall production cost to half of what it presently is by 2025.

Competitive Prices

While traditional gasoline-powered vehicles usually are priced lower than their Hybrid counterparts, this convention is quickly and surely changing with several manufactures understanding working towards making Hybrid vehicles far more pocket-friendly. In 2010 Honda Insight broke the $20K barrier to become the first assembly-produced car to be sold at a sub $20K price tag. In the 7 years since at least 14 other car models have been added to this list.

Incentives

Across the United States, a large number of electric and hybrid cars are now eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit. While there are several terms and conditions that apply (not applicable on used car purchases, not a direct cash payout etc.) this is certainly a great incentive for anyone looking to make a new car purchase.

Car insurance

There are a whole slew of car-insurance companies out there that offer highly lucrative deals and discounts on car-insurance for owners of new hybrid vehicles and since having a car insurance is essential for every car owner, a 10-20% concession on the insurance premiums goes a long way.

Maintenance Costs

As the name suggests ‘Hybrid’ vehicles run partly on traditional fuel cells, this reduces the wear and tear on the engine over time and thereby decreases the overall maintenance and upkeep costs. The flip side to this is the fact that Hybrid batteries just like any other battery eventually run out of charge. However, this should make you happy – on average a Hybrid car battery runs for up to 200,000 miles.

Fuel Mileage Gain

Fuel mileage gain depends a lot on the car-usage and the user’s driving habits. There have been many experiments that prove that the fuel efficiency of hybrid vehicles is far superior to a traditional gasoline-powered automobile in a stop-and-go setting – essentially for inner-city driving.
Hopefully this article dispenses a lot of myths around purchasing a Hybrid car, and convinces a lot of folks that purchasing a hybrid vehicle isn’t just good for the environment but great for your purse strings too!