Are Hybrids really worth it?

This is an article a friend sent me, it was written by "frugalTrader"
The article in it's entirety can be read here.
It's quite an eye-opener.

With record high gas prices due to the price of oil, I’m sure that most car owners out there have major concerns over their gas usage. Over the past 10 years, the cost of gasoline has grown 250%!

This got me thinking, with the newer “gas friendly” hybrid cars/SUV’s out there now, do the premiums attached to their price tags justify to extra mileage that you get? I did a little digging around the various car manufacturer websites to see the pricing of hybrids vs their gasoline versions and whether or not the gas savings added up.

From my research, this is the information that I dug up. Below is a table comparing some popular hybrids with their gasoline counterparts. The table calculates how long it would take the gas savings of a hybrid to pay for the difference in purchase price from their gasoline sibling.

Some notes about the data:

• The costs are the purchase price after taxes/levies/fees and with the ecoRebate applied if applicable.
• The comparison does not account for the extra maintenance cost (or depreciation) of the hybrids.
• Assumes the gasoline price of $1.30/L or around $4.91/gallon.
• The comparison is based on financial differences only and does not evaluate the “green” benefits.

Hybrid vs. Gasoline Vehicle Comparison

Car	Cost	yrs to payback
Civic LX	$25,170	–
Civic Hybrid	$29,200	6.33
Corolla LE	$24,665	–
Prius	$32,866	13.14
Ford Escape (fwd)	$30,226	–
Escape Hybrid	$35,119	6.72
Camry LE	$30798	–
Camry Hybrid	$36191	9.65

It seems that the best “value” out of the bunch is the Honda Civic Hybrid which would take over 6 years for the gas savings to make up for the difference in cost. Even though the Prius claims the best fuel mileage, it’s the worst value of the bunch. The Prius would take over 13 years to pay for it’s premium, that’s 13 years too long for me. With all the extra electronics involved with a Hybrid, it’s also bound to have extra maintenance costs also, which is not accounted for.

Out of the vehicles compared, the price premium attached to the hybrid vehicles are just too great to be considered a cost savings relative to purchasing their gasoline counterpart.