Buying a Used Hybrid

Because hybrids are a comparatively recent phenomenon, not too many have reached the used-car market. Those that have tend to be costly. This was especially true in mid-2008, when gasoline prices hit the roof and customers clamored for fuel-efficient models. There's a logical reason why secondhand hybrids are in short supply: relatively few have been sold new. Hybrids garner a lot of publicity, but modest sales. Around a million have gone to U.S. customers since 2000.


Toyota's Prius is the hybrid everyone's heard about, and it's the top seller. In the first 10 months of 2008, more than 142,000 were sold. That's more than half the total hybrid sales for the period. Honda sold a little over 29,000 Civic Hybrids, while Toyota delivered 42,000 Camry Hybrids.


Altogether, 22 hybrid models have been marketed since 2000, including nine passenger cars, 11 SUVs, and a pair of pickup trucks. Most of them did not appear until 2005 or later. Top sales year was 2007, when about 330,000 were sold. That year, customers drove home more than 1.6 million vehicles. So, hybrids amounted to barely over two percent of the total.


Skyrocketing 2008 fuel prices had an immediate impact. Between late 2007 and late 2008, the Prius dropped 19 percent in wholesale value, said Ricky Beggs, managing editor of the Black Book (a widely-consulted vehicle valuation guide). But that figure is misleading. "When gasoline prices went to $4 a gallon, Prius prices went absolutely berserk," Beggs added. They "went up a large amount," peaking in September, "and then came down." From October to December, that 2007 Prius dropped $6,000 in wholesale value from its peak, which translated to an even greater decline in retail price.


In June 2008, Norm Olson, national sales operations manager for Toyota Certified vehicles, saw previously owned Priuses going for $4,000 to $6,000 more than their new-car price. "Now they've gone to a realistic price," he said at the National Remarketing Conference, in October.


Other hybrids "didn't go crazy strong, like the Prius did," Beggs said. Ford's Escape Hybrid probably has the next-best value retention. The 2007 model lost barely over $1,000 in wholesale value between late 2007 and late 2008. "That's fantastic in the market we've been in," Beggs noted. Here's a quick rundown of the hybrids that might be found secondhand:

Hybrid Passenger Cars
Toyota Prius (2001-03): Along with Honda's Insight, the compact Prius sedan was one of the first hybrids in America. Sales were scant, but it got people used to the possibility of hybrids as regular transportation. Initially priced around $20,000, used first-generation Priuses can command as much as half that figure.


Toyota Prius (2004-09): Redesigned for 2004 in larger, midsize four-door liftback form, the second-generation Prius was the least-expensive hybrid. It also had the highest fuel-economy estimate: 60-mpg city and 51-mpg highway (reduced to 48/45 mpg during 2007). A 1.5-liter Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder gasoline engine works with an electric motor and continuously variable transmission (CVT). Though prices eased late in 2008, a year-old Prius can still command figures that approach its original new-car cost–above $20,000. Even a five-year-old has lost only about one-third of its initial value. For that purely economic reason, Priuses aren't the most sensible secondhand choice. A redesigned 2010 Prius will be unveiled at Detroit's auto show in January 2009.