The Homa Files

Encore presentation: Originally posted July 31, 2008. 

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Excerpted from the WSJ :”Patience Pays When Shopping for a Hybrid” July 30, 2008;

When gasoline prices hit $4 a gallon …  demand for smaller cars — hybrids and Priuses in particular — soared …  the wait for the popular hybrid has grown to roughly three months since May, and prices have climbed steeply, too.

The Prius’s gas mileage averages in the 45-miles-per-gallon range; that’s impressive, but the base price, following a $400 increase in May and a $500 jump that goes into effect Friday, is fairly steep …  if your main goal is to save money by buying less gasoline.

Next month, the basic Prius will start at $22,720. That’s more than … other reasonably fuel-efficient sedans, like the Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Nissan Altima or Ford Focus.

The (dealer) price has shot up, too … the average Prius now sells for $1,000 to $2,000 above the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.

It’s worth calculating your fuel savings to see how long it will take to make up the price difference.  [See earlier post Hybrid Cars – Tough Sell]

Toyota …  sold about 175,000 of the cars to the U.S. last year …  and expects to offer about the same number this year, largely because it can’t get enough batteries and other components to boost production.

For full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121738122995795557.html

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Thanks to MSB MBA alum Justin Bates for the heads-up

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This entry was posted on October 30, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Autos - Travel, Economics, Oil & Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.