For the smallest model in the range in Malaysia now, we have the Honda Insight and a comparable model should be Honda City, so let's see.
Honda Insight = RM99,800.00
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 20km/l
Honda City = RM90,480.00
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 13km/l
Based on a 20,000km range per year,
Honda Insight = 1,000 liters x RM1.90 = RM1,900.00 petrol price per year
Honda City = 1,538 liters x RM1.90 = RM2,922.20 petrol price per year.
Savings of RM1,022.20 per year. It's well known that hybrid runs on battery and whoever use handphone will know battery doesn't last. The last report from Autocar magazine earlier indicated the price for a new battery is almost RM7,000 and you should be changing it by the 4th or 5th year. Let's take 5 year for battery change out. Savings of RM1,022.20 x 5 years = RM5,111 savings and it's not even enough to pay for the battery! Now that sounds a little stupid, not to mention depreciation of the hybrid car as who will want to buy an old battery hybrid? Unless for a bargain as the next owner will need to take the RM7,000 into his calculations as well. Depreciation will suffer, savings is non, then why buy hybrid? Because you want to pretend to do environment a favour.
People will argue that hybrid will do less harm to the environment as it dispose off less carbon monoxide, but do you know how much harm it does by manufacturing the battery?? Either way, you are destroying the earth. Want to save the earth? Do it like the western style, cycle to work!
Insight is a bad example for Malaysia petrol price, let's take the crown of the hybrid, Toyota Prius and compare it against the Toyota Altis.
Toyota Prius = RM139,900
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 31km/l
Toyota Altis = RM112,900
Estimated Fuel Consumption = 10km/l
Based on 20,000km range per year,
Toyota Prius = 645 liters x RM1.90 = RM1,225.50
Toyota Altis = 2,000 liters x RM1.90 = RM3,800.00
Substantial savings of RMRM2,574.50!
However, Prius battery is quoted RM12,000 and how many years you will need for the savings to breakeven? 4 years. Whoever driven the Toyota Prius will know that the features provided is not as much different to a mid-range Toyota Altis, so for the additional price tag of RM27,000, now that will take a long long time to recover. So call hybrid car, I don't get the logic on cost savings actually, anyone mind enlighten me?
Worse, if you do a search online, you will see why Prius is bad for environment. Not particularly only Prius, but all hybrid cars. Top Gear tested the Prius agaisnt BMW M3 and M3 recorded a better mileage than Prius in their test circuit. It's all about how you drive. Then Prius battery contained nickel where the emission will cause acid rain that's damaging to all living things out there. Prius nickel is mined from Canada and it's send to Europe for refinement and then send to China for production into nickel foam and then only send to Japan for assembly. The process alone is more damaging that what you individual can do with a car! There is also another comparison made for Prius and Hummer, reported that Prius life expectancy of 100,000 miles is more environmentally damaging and expensive than a Hummer life expectancy of 300,000 miles.
We are in the information age, verify what I wrote online and don't listen to me blindly.
For other country that have more expensive petrol price, then fuel savings might play a bigger role, but not in Malaysia. As the fuel prices go up, and the battery price go down, cost savings is inevitable but definitely not for now and not within few years span in my opinion.
But if you are talking about helping the environment, I'm going to slap you in the face next time.
To me, I will just wait for the better technology before committing myself. Solar sounds good, anyone?
For greener place, here is what you can do now!
1. Change all your bulbs to energy-savings bulb. It's more expensive, but it really help.
2. Cut down on all eletricity usage and set your air-condition temperature a degree higher and on the fan, it does make substantial difference.
3. Cut down on plastic bag and recycle everything you can.
4. When buying next heavy eletricity appliance like air-condition, refrigerator, choose 5-star green rated appliance and claim RM200 from the government.
5. Switch of all switches when not using, it does draw electricity.
6. Live like your grandfather, throw your kids to the playground and stop them from playing iPad or PS3.
7. Stop printing emails and unnecessary things, save the trees.
8. Walk or cycle to work if you can, no one will be greener than you!
9. Plant some plants in your house, if every household have some plants, it will help substantially.
10. There are many more than buying a hybrid, let's show some action.
60 comments:
:) one of great overview.
thanks v much for your enlightenment.
appreciate your sharing
Good sharing!
Glad it help, cheers =)
yup. in fact ur better off buying a diesl engine car. better mileage!
1. Petrol price is not locked at 1.90 for next 5 years.
2. Hybrid saves the planet, environment and ozone.
3. Car price is reasoably good.
Go for Hybrid!
1. petrol is least of an eco-warrior. but you can try to calculate the petrol at higher cost, then you let me know =)
2. hybrid does not save planet, production & disposal of the battery is more harmful than the burning of petrol himself. go google, everything is in the internet.
3. car price is reasonably good only because government is exempting the tax, look at overseas, it's much more expensive. do take advantage of the tax break, but as said, eco-warrior should worry less on the cost, no?
very informative. TQ. Fook
very good analysis and understanding. Before we buy anything, better do the most investigation and calculation.
always try to understand something fully before committing yourself into it. it's dumb to follow the trend blindly and not understand a single thing before dedicating your life to fight for something you dont understand. that's my philosophy, that's why i always google =) there might be false information in the net, so make your own judgement =) peace ...
Honda Malaysia offer 5 years battery warranty, some said battery can last 7 years while manufacturer claims 9 to 10 years. Haven't really heard of any battery replacement case yet since Insight is quite new.
You may need to take consideration of car service maintenance as Insight is higher than city.
Recently heard Honda Japan is planning to recycle hybrid battery.
If you want to get Altis spec similar to Prius spec from safety perspective, Altis model should be 1.8G, which is RM123K, so Altis is 16K less expensive. However, Altis still does not have
1. Smart Key/Push Start
2. 7 Airbags
3. Japan Made Quality
4. Quietness during low speed
Not to mention petrol price will keep increase in long term, can you guarantee RON95 will stay in RM1.90 in next 5 years? yes, I admit hybrid car does use harmful material to build, which is no good to environment, but in the long run, hybrid cars still use much lesser Petrol, lesser CO2 compare to normal car, this can outweight the damage effect of using rare earth material.
I own a Prius C, it costs much lesser than Prius, and enjoy lower fuel consumption, compare to Altis, Prius C is cheaper than Altis 1.6 by 9K, and it has much more safety feature than Altis 1.6, the only downsize is smaller cabin size.
we all are battery user, so how battery works we all know. 3/5/7/10 years, you judge yourself.
I think if compare specification for prius with altis also not fair already, because prius is a smaller car, and altis is bigger in any means. no need to argue on this, go check the dimension and sit one for yourself. if the salesman tell me correctly, prius battery is RM12,000, and that translate to 6,315liters of petrol at RM1.90/L. Petrol price will go up, and if you are buying the prius in hoping the petrol price will go higher, then pray hard. I'm just looking at current facts.
please also dont compare with prius c, it's a jazz size. please look at pricing for city / vios. i love the prius c also, and i think nothign wrong with hybrid. If you can afford the premium for its premium style / futuristic look, then by all means buy it.
My point is, it's not that cheap and it's not that helpful in environment. CO2 is nothing compare to the battery production. Again, please go google. It's a very long article, can't put that into my blog. Cheers =)
fully agree with what you said except that i chose Honda Jazz Hybrid over Honda City due to Honda Jazz Hybrid has more features than City.
Cruise Control, auto light, rain sensor, more airbags......etc.
congrats on the new jazz hybrid, nice car. a real bargain over the usual over-price jazz they have been selling. treat it as a car, i'm ok. i'm not ok if you tell ppl it's saving money or doing environment a favour! the futuristic style of hybrid is head turner :P
How about Toyota estima? I am planning to buy the recon type. Anybody knows how much does it cost on fuel consumption RM / KM?
I have altis 1.8e model now
For information only: http://www.keenforgreen.com/b/hybrid-myths-and-facts
the link is a joke. Find out what's the content of the battery first. whoever say battery is safe, must knock their head. And it's designed to be car lifetime? That's weird.
you do believe in what Top Gear said, dont you?
Hehe very good overview u just save me from throwing my cash that I can use on my dream car ehehe
I believe in whatever that make sense. =)
Nurul, glad it helps. Do note that the calculations changed as the variable changes as well. Cheers.
Toyota Prius is built for city driving while m3 is built for the track. I wonder if they do the test in normal city driving conditions, the result is still the same.
And I doubt that people who wanted a Prius would drive ONLY 20k km per year. Yes they are people out there who buys hybrid and drive only 10k km or less a year, in that case, I do agree with you that they didn't do the calculations before buying.
Toyota and Honda are NOT the only car manufacturer that build hybrid car, if you are aware of the car industry, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini and even BMW that build M3 are either selling hybrid cars, or having a plan to build hybrid cars.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to hijack your blog. I like top gear and I enjoyed watching it too, but after all, it's still a TV show which tries to entertain( with some good information). I do prefer diesel better than hybrids.
Finally, I'm just sharing what I've learned from various sources and I might be wrong too.
Cheers : )
yea, probably you are right, but we do drive car on long distance as well, so if you pure city drive with lots of start stop, then maybe it make sense, I dont know. Lots of people are building hybrid, but doesnt means it makes sense to buy them. Look at the price tag. Wait till the price lowered down, then maybe it will be a good buy. diesel sucks in my country, so this differ from country to country.
When Hybrids were first introduced some years back, I though that they’d be the new thing to replace traditional cars. But the sad fact is, they can’t perform the same as those that have worked so well for the past 60 plus years. They don’t have the same amount of power.
re-involt
Hybrid battery has been reduced significantly for Honda (up to 52%) and currently prius battery is RM9k for replacement. Prius is one the reliable car in the market. Do not judge a car by just comparing with fuel price only.
Like I clarify, the opinion I mentioned is based on the condition set forth during that time, where battery replacement is expensive. And my point is the car is not environmental friendly, so don't pretend it does environment a favour. Finally, since when reliability is an issue for hybrid? I never say anything about it.
More than 90% of the battery itself is recycleable.. I think it is enviromental friendly, by looking at how they produce the battery and as long as you dont carck your self up by throwing the battery into the drains. It is still environmental friendly.
yea, probably you are right, but we do drive car on long distance as well, so if you pure city drive with lots of start stop, then maybe it make sense, I dont know. Lots of people are building hybrid, but doesnt means it makes sense to buy them. Look at the price tag. Wait till the price lowered down, then maybe it will be a good buy. diesel sucks in my country, so this differ from country to country.
I own a Honda Insight since 2011 and i chose it due to the following reason when comparing to City:
1. Futuristic looks & hatchback design(come
with 408L boot space)
2. Safety&conveniences feature (Auto
headlight & wiper,VSA,isofix,cruise
control,LED tail light & climate control)
which E spec city only have VSA, the above
features should worth the difference of
pricing between 2 model
3. Tax exempted for hybrid car below 2.0L. As a
Malaysian,I'm really fedup to pay the huge
taxes on car to goverment,I'm quite happy to
pay a very little taxes on this car.Hybrid
cars are relatively expensive at oversea
when compare to conventional car,eg:RM109k
honda insight vs RM85K Toyota camry in Taiwan
4. Pay less visit to petrol station,average
19km/l, 50%city/50%highway
5. Simple hybrid system compare to toyota full
hybrid system,easy maintenance&less problem
in the future,it similar like kers system
used in F1 which provide additional
torque&hp,offcouse no EV mode
6. Fully imported car from Japan,no doubt on
built quality,in other hand,need to pay
higher price on replacement parts due to CBU
7. Equivalent or slightly better acceralation
compared to city as electric motor kick in
at very low rpm
Overall: The driving experience over these 2yrs has been good.It's good deal(only in Malaysia thx to overprice conventional cars)and you should get 1.
Good to see blogs like this one! thanks for sharing! houston used cars
Hybrid battery has been reduced significantly for Honda and currently prius battery is for replacement. Prius is one the reliable car in the market.
these guys are more clever than honda engineers when talking about battery i guess...dont worry lahh...the battery price will go down after more people use hybrids. New things always expensive the moment it was new..after sometime when the market grow bigger you will see the price reduction on parts...just dont be skeptics...these kind of people cannot accept new technologies..afterall they contribute nothing to lessen the carbon footprint compare to hybrid owners. They'll only making the world hotter everyday....
Honda hybrid battery price warranty extended to 8 years and replacement reduced by 47%...follow this link...http://paultan.org/2013/06/05/honda-hybrid-battery-reduction-warranty/
Found many inaccuracies in your post.
1.) Hybrid batteries have been proven to last 10 years and more at least for the prius. The 1st gen prius is still working up to today. Your assumption needs to be changed.
2.) Lots of discounts on the hybrid. Around 8-9k now. Yes that's obtainable. So it's approx 130k instead of 139k.
3.) Prius has 7 air bags, Traction control,VSC, cruise control, bigger interior room. It's size is actually in between Altis and Camry. The nearest in spec is the Altis 2.0 so you're comparing with 132k not 112k.
4.) Top Gear compared a 2nd gen prius with the M3, not the third gen. The 2nd gen was bad at high speed, but the corrected for the 3rd gen with a bigger engine so the engine do not have to strain so much. Also it's an inaccurate test because you don't do full throttle 100% of the time.
I don't understand from where you get the assumption that Malaysia, or rather Hybrid car owner drives 20k km annually which it totally unrealistic. For whatever reason we buy the hybrid, we have our own reason to buy it. For instance, I used to spend RM500-RM600 on petrol. Same distance with Prius, it cost me at most RM200-250. In term of environmental care, pls tell me you never use cell phone, you never stay in the house, you never drive any car or take public transportation to everywhere and so on, you shouldn't wear any clothes, and you shouldn't drink any water. This is because your existence has caused the mother nature to be really bad.
Furthermore, i believe you never own one hybrid vehicle before because, you never know how the car works and more details about the car in term of fuel consumption and the rest. And please, before you criticize anything, pls do your homework. An hybrid batter cost RM8500, not RM12k. Moreover, every per km, my fuel consumption is 0.09 (round up), you tell me, beside motorbike, can you find a vehicle beside EV which can have fuel consumption lower than that?
I do agree during production, pollution will occur. However, pollution during production is similar to every vehicle manufacturing regardless of which type of vehicle. Can you tell me that during production of normal petrol vehicle, you will not having any pollution? Some more, most of the material in the Prius, 80% and above is recyclable. So, what is the wrong with you?
wow, so many replies, ok let me try to address one by one. Since all anonymous, I will just answer whatever cross my mind.
1. batteries proven last 10 years. We all are battery user, and we know exactly how battery works. Rechargeable battery deteriorate as time pass, and there are limited recharges. It is still there doesn't mean it's working. You experience acid leakage and explosion from battery before? Go figure, not going to argue further on this.
2. Like I always said, as of the point when I write, replacement of battery is expensive. Just calculate yourself how many liters of petrol you can buy with that replacement cost. You can keep the battery for 10-20 years and pretend it's still working fine, your call. What technology has changed that allow the initial 5 years replacement changed to 10 years? You go search and tell me.
3. Malaysia exempted the price, so the hybrid is attractive only in Malaysia. look at other country, it's very very expensive. so maybe make sense in Malaysia due to high tax on cars. I'm merely pointing out that be open when taken this into consideration, work out your own cost. It will have more cost savings as govt remove the subsidy, so pray harder!
4. top gear test inaccurate? go complain to top gear, i'm not there when they did the test, maybe they manipulated the data, hehe, you know them, they do anything to get people to see their show
5. my assumption in Malaysia is because I'm Malaysian and I got lots of friends are Malaysian and all of them average 20,000km. Simple, and i'm not going to defend on that. if you drive less than that, then get some life =)
6. cell phone and AA batter compare to the humongous battery in car?? please .... I'm just pointing out hybrid does more damage than normal car, so don't pretend it's doing environment a favour, ok? and yes, I'm guilty polluting the world also, my bad =( but for you, stop doing more damage than me please =)
7. I'm mechanical engineer by profession, and of course I never own one. Complaining hybrid is not good but still buy one? That's weird isn't it? But I do did my research before making my decision. 12k price is given to me by Toyota salesman, maybe he cheated me because he don't want me to own one. Or the price has drop because hybrid sales suffer, so they lower it to lure customers. You have to ask Toyota. I know how hybrid works, that's why I written such a long post, else you think everything drop from sky? With google, anyone can be expert, haha
8. on consumption, please go read about skyactiv from mazda, multijet from alfa, earth from Honda and etc. all very very advance technology and good consumption without battery. I got live data from these, coz my friends driving it, and comparable to hybrid.
9. everywhere pollution, but hybrid is doing more pollution. so you can own a hybrid no problem, I never complain. But it's not making any good to environment, so stop pretending to be one. Do me a favour, go read what's in the battery. NiMH, and go read also how to dispose NiMH please.
What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? So free come write so long in my blog. I'm just a mere mortal needing a space to express my view. Leave me in peace please
So i'll rebutt for whichever is relevant
1 and 2
http://www.hybridcars.com/first-numbers-hybrid-battery-failure/
"out-of-warranty battery replacement rate is 0.003 percent—or one out of 40,000 Priuses—for the second generation Prius."
http://editorial.autos.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=542377
"But as far as Toyota is concerned, the life of the Prius is defined as 180,000 miles, and the nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery is expected to stay perky at least that long."
http://autos.aol.com/article/toyota-prius-reliability/
"The engineers at Consumer Reports recently decided to answer those questions by taking a 2002 Prius with 208,000 miles on it, and putting it through its paces. The magazine's testers hooked the car up to its testing instruments to see if battery performance and fuel efficiency had degraded, and if so, by how much. As part of the evaluation, the engineers also checked into battery replacement costs."
Since the 1st gen prius is already around since 2001, they have already statistics on failure rate and how long it can last.
3. Malaysia exempted the price, so the hybrid is attractive only in Malaysia. look at other country, it's very very expensive. so maybe make sense in Malaysia due to high tax on cars. I'm merely pointing out that be open when taken this into consideration, work out your own cost. It will have more cost savings as govt remove the subsidy, so pray harder!
We are taking Malaysia into consideration right since you put all your prices in RM. Anyway as I said before your comparison car isn't accurate. You might want to correct that in your post.
4.) Top gear test is not a representative of the real world and it is misleading.For eg:- you eventhough as a mechanical engineer was mislead by the test. Also As I mentioned they improved high speed consumption in the third gen by placing a bigger engine.
http://www.treehugger.com/cars/why-top-gear-got-it-all-wrong-in-prius-vs-bmw-m3.html
8.) Really?
That strange cause fuelly shows otherwise, mazda6 31.7mpg vs prius 48.7mpg.
http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/prius
http://www.fuelly.com/car/mazda/6
Hmm who should i trust you or fuelly?
But I must admit, without any tax incentive the prius wouldn't make sense. But it does now with tax incentives.
However as I said a lot of your views are inaccurate/incomplete and it's fine if you don't want to change it . I just want to make sure other readers know about that and I've include links to facts and figures to find out the real truth on their own.
car comparison isn't accurate? prius with altis not accurate? ok, you go do the math for altis 2.0 against the prius then go have fun. however, altis will smoke you, different range of power. I compare altis in comparison of space and power. it's up to your personal opinion on what car to compare. you can say bmw 3 series is very small, go compare to proton, hehe ...
topgear might be misleading, but a m3 if driven well is fuel savings as well, all depending on what power you want. a light footed control can give a good FC
of coz hybrid got better mpg, but you forgotten to add in the cost. put the cost into the comparison please, else it's biased. I can also compare horsepower only, and 0-100 for both cars. duh...
I never say hybrid doesn't make sense in Malaysia. it's good to have tax exemption, but i'm merely pointing out 2 reasons in my entire blog
1. cost savings is not much, if you consider the advice for the manufacturer to change out the battery, as OF MY TIME OF WRITING. now maybe cheaper, I haven't verify. Go play with the numbers
2. It's not environmental friendly as claimed, because it's harmful to produce the battery and disposal later. slight savings in CO2 is not comparable to producing it. not say by me, but the website I pointed out. go read.
finally, it's my blog, so I decide what stay in the comments column. Whoever want to put some harsh words, go write your own blog =)
finally finally, you can decide on your own what you like. That's the simple power of being a human being, you have your own mind, so you go decide yourself. I have my opinion, and you can hate it, but if you don't have anything better to do than complaining here, please, find your life back. if everyone agree with what I say, hybrid can go close shop already, but the sales is climbing, so maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm right, so? have fun people =)
Wow you call that comments harsh ? or is it harsh because i debunked all your statements with facts .....LOL.
As I said I just want to make sure other readers know the inaccuracies in your post and I've posted links to facts and figure and LET THEM decide who's right and who's wrong.
Don't so emo, it's not you that's harsh. I've deleted other comments which is pure hatred.
I openly accepted your comments, else you won't have chance to write =) There are always 2 sides of the coins, and I'm open to discussion.
Nice post! It seems to be like an inverter! That is really helpful where there is no electricity i am gonna read that stuff to help my houston used cars. Thanks for giving us information..
re-involt
Great sharing KVINLIM, u have just made my decision easier, cheers!
Excellent article! I have seen a lot of different home generator services, but this is excellent! For the very first time i am going to know that a hybrid vehicle can be used as a generator,thanks i am greatly impressed by the work you done!
I'm glad I read your review about Hybrid. Other wise I was about to make payment to car dealer for 2011 Toyota Camry Hybrid.
I was reading your post and no doubt it was really informative.I got here what i was looking for.Thanks for sharing. Prius Hybrid Battery
Nice post! It seems to be like an inverter! That is really helpful where there is no electricity i am gonna read that stuff to help my houston used cars. Thanks for giving us information.
Great info! I am greatly impressed by the work you done!In the event that you are unsure of the status of your batteries, make sure to talk about it with your aid counsel. Thanks for sharing.
Nice post....HSD technology produces a full hybrid vehicle which allows the car to run on
the electric motor only, as opposed to most other brand hybrids which cannot and are
considered mild hybrids.Hybrid Battery
"It's well known that hybrid runs on battery and whoever use handphone will know battery doesn't last. The last report from Autocar magazine earlier indicated the price for a new battery is almost RM7,000 and you should be changing it by the 4th or 5th year. Let's take 5 year for battery change out. Savings of RM1,022.20 x 5 years = RM5,111 savings and it's not even enough to pay for the battery! Now that sounds a little stupid, not to mention depreciation of the hybrid car as who will want to buy an old battery hybrid? Unless for a bargain as the next owner will need to take the RM7,000 into his calculations as well. Depreciation will suffer, savings is non, then why buy hybrid? Because you want to pretend to do environment a favour.
People will argue that hybrid will do less harm to the environment as it dispose off less carbon monoxide, but do you know how much harm it does by manufacturing the battery?? Either way, you are destroying the earth. Want to save the earth? Do it like the western style, cycle to work!
Insight is a bad example for Malaysia petrol price, let's take the crown of the hybrid, Toyota Prius and compare it against the Toyota Altis."
How about your research regarding on this matter?
1) Battery lifetime is 5 years....but warranty is 8 years.
2) The price for a new battery is almost RM7,000...but Honda offer RM3,XXX
Though hybrid cars are the center of attraction in auto industry but still it is having some flaws. It is natural, everything have pros and cons. I'm shocked a little by reading your post but I agree with all these things. These are completely practical in our day today life. How far it is about the environmental safety, then the last few points are very much helpful in keeping the environment clean and pollution free. Toyota Repair Chatsworth.
Prius C second hand cost 40-50k after near 250k km. Izzit worth to invest in one if compared to Proton n Perodua new cars with less safety n technology? Replacement battery cost around 7-8k now with warranty 8 yrs.
Increase in Used cars purchase can be also due to the easy availability in market after the arrival of online Used Toyota Vitz Cars For Sale
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The article is every informative & very nice to read.
Hope you will write more articles like this in future Thank you & Good luck.
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