Car & Driver PHEV breakeven

[rickinAZ]

Interesting read. Scroll down and you'll find the break-even chart. They calculated BE for four models. The "best" was 335K miles and the worst was near 1.3M miles. Gulp.

Federal/state incentives may help make up some ground. Honestly, the draw for me is low-end torque (hence my EcoDiesel), but I thought that there was some fuel savings to be had - even counting the premium price.

To be clear I am very open-minded on PHEVs. I'd even consider a Wrangler 4xe for my next Jeep.

https://www.caranddriver.com/featur...g-does-it-take-to-pay-back-higher-phev-prices

For the ICE-loving Luddites (that may include me) I fear that this train may have already left the station.

Please no politics.

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[John VonJeep]

The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by this.

 

[lindaspins]

For me, there were 2 reasons to go with the 4xe. One was lowering gas costs for local driving (it fits this quite nicely), the other was power. I don't buy vehicles as an investment, I buy them to use. Looking at that break-even point really isn't part of my vehicle decision making.
I am glad we bought in '21 because we couldn't have gotten a well-equipped Rubicon at our price point if we'd waited another year or so.

 

[dsgrey]

The only surprise is that anyone is surprised by this.

Correct. While my spouse has a hybrid which we like, when I commuted 15 years ago I looked at the hybrid expense ROI versus a similar small ICE I was driving. The factors being fuel savings vs increased hybrid cost and that was around 150k miles before breaking even (all highway miles). Back in the days before vehicles really became inflated in price.

 

[Sidewalk]

I'm surprised it is that bad. I'm currently 16 miles each way from work, soon to be 9. A small electric or PHEV would make sense for my use case.

Except I commute virtually year round on a bicycle. I get my manual transmission fun, and my cheap commute too. Though, I never bothered calculating the break even on my $10,000 bicycle

 

[rickinAZ]

I suspect that 100 years ago our (now) beloved ICE vehicles would have suffered a similar financial shellacking versus the horse. Yet now we adore them.
History moves on.

 

[PatriotX]

Mine was break even the day I bought it, with tax credit. The gas savings, while not tremendous, adds up. $2700 savings difference over 33550 miles, per Fuelly. This includes the delta in electric consumption, charger provides a good breakdown of use and cost.


I drive this thing hard. A mall crawler could do far better numbers.

 

[Steemax]

My monthly gas bill went from $600 to $700 on the Tacoma to half that but I wanted a more powerful rubicon, can care less about the politics. Give me an affordable 392 and I’ll make the switch yesterday but in no fantasy world would I pay $100k for a wrangler.

 

[BXFXJeep]

The 2021 Sahara 4xe was $500 cheaper than a similarly equiped 2.0T, there was no tax incentives in Ontario at that time.

A 2024 Sahara 4xe cost about $4,000 more than a gas Sahara, now the government kicks in $2,500.

My previous 2018 3.6 JL required gas every week, so about $400-$450 a month.

I fill up maybe 6x a year now.

Cost 8 - 14 cents a kWh, gas is $7 a gallon.

YMMV significantly with PHEVs.

 

[alphawolff]

In my opinion the fuel savings you get from the hybrid factor isn't worth it when you're making unscheduled service visits every other oil change.

Fortunately the absolutely insane warranty covers just about every part of the powertrain. It's 15 years/150k miles here in cali. Even stuff like the A/C compressor is covered under it. Absolute insanity.

As a guy who works on these every single day I couldn't recommend one unless you use it as a second vehicle and genuinely do not mind it being in the shop time from time. They're nice when they're working properly.

 

[Steemax]

In my opinion the fuel savings you get from the hybrid factor isn't worth it when you're making unscheduled service visits every other oil change.

Fortunately the absolutely insane warranty covers just about every part of the powertrain. It's 15 years/150k miles here in cali. Even stuff like the A/C compressor is covered under it. Absolute insanity.

As a guy who works on these every single day I couldn't recommend one unless you use it as a second vehicle and genuinely do not mind it being in the shop time from time. They're nice when they're working properly.

Isn't the 15yr/150k mile a warranty for emissions related equipment only? That's been my understanding i.e. Cat converters, EVAP, PCV, that sort of thing.

 

[R3TRO]

I'm surprised it is that bad. I'm currently 16 miles each way from work, soon to be 9. A small electric or PHEV would make sense for my use case.

Except I commute virtually year round on a bicycle. I get my manual transmission fun, and my cheap commute too. Though, I never bothered calculating the break even on my $10,000 bicycle

Serious question... what makes a bike $10,000? And is it that much better than say spending, idk, $1,000? I know nothing about the bicycle world and am trying to wrap my head around that figure!

 

[Yogi1956]

Interesting read. Scroll down and you'll find the break-even chart. They calculated BE for four models. The "best" was 335K miles and the worst was near 1.3M miles. Gulp.

Federal/state incentives may help make up some ground. Honestly, the draw for me is low-end torque (hence my EcoDiesel), but I thought that there was some fuel savings to be had - even counting the premium price.

To be clear I am very open-minded on PHEVs. I'd even consider a Wrangler 4xe for my next Jeep.

https://www.caranddriver.com/featur...g-does-it-take-to-pay-back-higher-phev-prices

For the ICE-loving Luddites (that may include me) I fear that this train may have already left the station.

Please no politics.

Our ‘24 Rubicon X 4Xe started at 76850 and ended up at 61 and change after tax incentives and dealer discounts plus the entire purchase price was a business write off because of the weight. The worst mpg with no charging available on vacation was 17.5 mpg and by far it’s the most fun Jeep to drive that we’ve owned (6th Jeep). The performance is 2nd only to the Hemi.

If you pay MSRP and make too much to use the tax incentives the numbers are not good but who’s paying MSRP these days?

 

[Skeethree]

Interesting read. Scroll down and you'll find the break-even chart. They calculated BE for four models. The "best" was 335K miles and the worst was near 1.3M miles. Gulp.

Federal/state incentives may help make up some ground. Honestly, the draw for me is low-end torque (hence my EcoDiesel), but I thought that there was some fuel savings to be had - even counting the premium price.

To be clear I am very open-minded on PHEVs. I'd even consider a Wrangler 4xe for my next Jeep.

https://www.caranddriver.com/featur...g-does-it-take-to-pay-back-higher-phev-prices

For the ICE-loving Luddites (that may include me) I fear that this train may have already left the station.

Please no politics.

C&D ignored the federal and state credits available for the 4xe. I'll agree that without those credits (and the ability to plug-in every night, ideally with kilowatts that were produced by solar panels), the 4xe is a non-starter. I just bought my second one, and the discounts and credits lowered a $63,000 Sahara to $48,000, which is a whole lot cheaper than the ICE version of the same vehicle. After 5 weeks I just filled it for the first time with 4 gallons of gas. I'll also admit to not being real happy about all the money the government is handing out to try to get us to buy plug-in or electric vehicles, and all the additional dollars now being handed out to install chargers that the owner companies make a good buck on, but the money's there for the taking. Eventually our politicians will run out of "other people's money".

 

[graytag]

Lease a PHEV and you need a Time Machine to go back and recognize the BE. Having said that, who even thinks about break-even calculations on a highly depreciating asset? Makes my head spin. Buy it or don't but save the math for shit that actually matters.

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