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Before you purchased this vehicle did you investigate what it costs to replace one of those batteries that run it? I know that some are quite shocked when they find out that one Prius battery can cost up to $3500 and that they often don't last the length of time advertised. You got a decent deal so you may not care, but, it may not be quite as cheap in the long run as you think it is.
When we went past 100,000 miles on our Prius-3 I was concerned about battery health and longevity. I spoke with the service manager at my Toyota dealership. As it turns out there are no computer codes to indicate battery health so long as it is 'healthy'. The codes only start popping up when cells begin to fail. Our local dealership is seeing vehicles reaching 300,000 miles without battery failure.
Looking into buying a car and seriously want to take the plunge and go for the Prius Prime. Test drove it and really liked it. The Fed and state tax credits really make it a good deal.
However, I'm concerned that it has no spare tire or donut. It only comes with a tire repair kit as the space in the trunk where a spare usually resides is taken up by the Lithium battery. Which means if I damage a tire in one of the vicious potholes that are everywhere here in MA (it happened before), I'll be stuck. Even with roadside assistance, it's still a challenge getting to/from a repair shop when the car becomes undriveable, esp if it happens late at night. Compared to a regular car, I can put the spare on, throw the damaged tire-wheel into the trunk and deal with it later.
How do people reconcile this... Or do most people have a 2nd car in the family to fall back on so this isn't a big concern for them.
Looking into buying a car and seriously want to take the plunge and go for the Prius Prime. Test drove it and really liked it. The Fed and state tax credits really make it a good deal.
However, I'm concerned that it has no spare tire or donut. It only comes with a tire repair kit as the space in the trunk where a spare usually resides is taken up by the Lithium battery. Which means if I damage a tire in one of the vicious potholes that are everywhere here in MA (it happened before), I'll be stuck. Even with roadside assistance, it's still a challenge getting to/from a repair shop when the car becomes undriveable, esp if it happens late at night. Compared to a regular car, I can put the spare on, throw the damaged tire-wheel into the trunk and deal with it later.
How do people reconcile this... Or do most people have a 2nd car in the family to fall back on so this isn't a big concern for them.
We have a prius-3 and a prius prime. We have eight tires that fit either one. Each vehicle has four summer tires and four studded winter tires.
No shortage of spare tires.
It is really dangerous to drive in winter without studs in this area.
Looking into buying a car and seriously want to take the plunge and go for the Prius Prime. Test drove it and really liked it. The Fed and state tax credits really make it a good deal.
However, I'm concerned that it has no spare tire or donut. It only comes with a tire repair kit as the space in the trunk where a spare usually resides is taken up by the Lithium battery. Which means if I damage a tire in one of the vicious potholes that are everywhere here in MA (it happened before), I'll be stuck. Even with roadside assistance, it's still a challenge getting to/from a repair shop when the car becomes undriveable, esp if it happens late at night. Compared to a regular car, I can put the spare on, throw the damaged tire-wheel into the trunk and deal with it later.
How do people reconcile this... Or do most people have a 2nd car in the family to fall back on so this isn't a big concern for them.
I think it's a compromise for many. We are 4 member household with a single car. It's not electric, but some of the issues you're talking about still applies. We don't have a "backup" vehicle anymore so if something happens to our car we're going to be inconvenienced. That's just a fact.
Fortunately, I have a 5 minute biking commute (electric bike might I add) to my bank, doctor, dentist, grocery store, handful of restaurants and coffee shops.. even a movie theater... if I ride for 10 minutes I can get to a live theater, library and city hall... and if I continue for another 5-10 minutes I have Trader Joes, Target and a fabulous donut shop, a bunch of hotels, restaurants and other services... basically, the community's entire commercial and retail is within a 10-20 minute ride. I use an ebike for my work too.
I can't wait until my 10 year old hits a growth spurt and can fit into one. The recommended age is between 13-16 and my 13 year old is my height and is competent at using it.
We could buy four of them for under $8k and I bet if we bought in bulk we could bring the price down.
I've had mine for 18 months and the battery is still fine. Not quite where it was brand new, but it doesn't seem to need replacing in the near future.
I'm pretty sure our next car will be a hybrid or full electric. We're waiting on two things:
1) We want the price to come down a little. I'm hopeful as the auto industry is really starting to embrace EV design.
2) We need to be able to do a road trip in it. I live in Seattle and I've seen maps that show that getting to and from California wouldn't be a problem, but I've got family in Minneapolis. I'm not sure if there are enough changing stations along I-90/94 to make an EV road trip possible. Fortunately all of this is rapidly changing..
In the meantime I always carry insurance with roadside assistance. We actually needed it last year... the transmission on our car went out right as we were entering Yosemite Natl Park. We were pretty remote. It did cost us some money, but they got to us pretty quickly all things considered. As long as you make sure you have cell phone coverage (and you should along interstates for the most part) it is okay. We actually didn't have cell phone service when my car broke.. but it literally went out as I was descending a mountain (which was good as we would have been f----- if we had been trying to go up!) and rolled into a trail head that happened to have a pay phone... and it worked!
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