That's a pretty steep premium over the base 4-banger.

It is a steep premium if it had the same equipment level. There are several features on it that are above the standard 4 cylinder Camry (not to mention the additional fuel economy and available power). Some of the items are not even available as an option on the base 4 cylinder model.

Once they stop charging a premium over MSRP for these, this will be my next car.

"What's the difference in features? It's still cheaper than the base V-6 by almost $2K."

Actually, that's for the primo XLE model. You can get an LE with a 6 for $23,040 -- about $4,500 less than the hybrid 4-banger.

This isn't apples-to-apples, as Patrick mentioned, as the trim levels are obviously different. I sure would appreciate it if the manufacturers would simply make hyrbid an option with a price on it, so we wouldn't have to estimate it.

Will the trends for hybrids posted here continue? Has the green market saturated? Hybrids don't pay, on purely economic basis. Cars are being held a little longer, as posted here, but not to 200K. Buy a Yaris, Aveo or Spectra or somesuch if you want an economical, efficient option.

I never did get my thank you note from Steve Jobs for buying that $2300 Mac SE 20 (with a 20MB HD) back in 1987 that is now a doorstop. Or that Mac g3 lombard powerbook with a blazing 266MhZ processor.

It's still an early adopter situation. Folks like us are helping to build the hybrid market for future generations. I did it for computers. Someday no one will bother to put a hybrid badge on the car because it will be like ABS, and will cost a lot less than it does now.

Is the world any better for all those computer I bought? It certainly is for the Prius I bought and I hope someday soon to upgrade to the next level in technology.

Oh Please GM!! Bring back the EV2 but with A123 batteries.
So now I can go 300 miles and recharge in ten minutes.
The future is here. Now. But they won't give it to us!

I predict, that in the same year, scientists will be allowed to reveal life is on other planets, one of the big four will mass produce a full electric car.

Lance and other hybrid owners:

Good for you. The Camry is not much more than the Prius and less, depending upon the feature set. I, personnaly, am happy with my Prius and can't see any reason to go for the Camry. Others, who wouldn't buy a Prius, may see it differently. Let's hope so, if this gets them out of a car with worse gas mileage.

Hope, like others, that the hybrid setup merely becomes an option. Right now, though, I guess Toyota perceives that as a more expensive, complicated way to go.

One important issue is that the HSD is a good gateway to a plug in. Still hoping and waiting that Toyota mass produces an upgrade for about $5,000. According to a post I read in EV world, the U.S. electric baseload could take care of converting 10% of our fleet to PHEV.
So, the net reduction in GHG for the first 10% would be roughly equal to the vehicles replaced. That should hold us for awhile before we would have to think about increasing capacity due to electric conversion.

I'm so sick of people comparing a striped down base model to a top of the line fully loaded hybrid model and saying that hybrids are $8,000 more expensive yada yada yada. People actually try to compare my Civic Hybrid against a Civic DX, the DX doesn't even have A/C, I think only 2 speakers, it's ****ing ridiculous. Take a fully loaded camry 4 cylinder and compare it against it's fully loaded camry hybrid, THAT'S your price difference!

Loaded 4cyl 24city/33highway is $24,425 for a difference of $1475. Toss in the tax breaks and it would be a wash. But wait there's more (sorry Autoweek :-) ), the hybrid has more power and is rated at 16MPG better in the city and 5MPG better on the highway.

All,

What may happen is that the hybrid Camry competes with the V6 and not the 4 banger. Rated Hp for the Hybrid is nearly the same as the 2005 V6 (approx 200). Hopefully people will now see the equation a bit differently. You can achieve near V6 aceleration out of a vehicle getting 38 MPG. Payback times wil be considerably shorter comparing the V6 to the hybrid. If we see a trend of individuals replacing V6's with hybrids, that could really revolutionize the hybrid industry IMHO.

At 29 MPG, Camry will consume 150,000 (miles) / 29 = 5,172 gallons.

At 39 MPG, Camry hybrid consumes 150,000 / 39 = 3,846 gallons.

Differnce of 1,326 gallons * $2.4/ gallon = 3,183 savings.

Ofcourse Camry Hybrid will have tons of extra feature + very smooth ride. Expect the demand to shoot up.

For now hybrids are sold for 1 reason, meeting the california emissions standards.

People buy them for the image.

If we assume a 150,00 mile service life which is not unreaistic for a gasoline engine (5000 hrs service life at 35 mph ave = 175k)

I have next to zero confidence that the $4000 battery pack will last that long. NiMh batterys only have an expected life of 1000 cycles or so.

Using 12k per yr that gives us a 12.5 yr service life over which to regain the costs of the Hybrid option.

Using the math above if the MPG difference goes from 29 to 39. YMMV

That would translate to a savings of 1326 gallons over 12.5 yrs.

BUT here is the kicker you have to pay for the cost of the hybrid up front and the gasoline only as you use it.

You could also take $7630 if that is the added cost of the hybrid over a gas only vehicle with the same specs and performace otherwise and put it in the bank ar 4% intrest. You would have $12,569

If you have $7630k laying around

If you have to take out a loan for the full ammount you would have to recover the cost of the intrest paid on the larger loan.

If we took out a 5 yr loan on $25,900 or $18,270

The total paid would be $21,193 and $30,043 respectivly

So for for the numbers given above assuming all things being equal except MPG.

Also assuming gas stays the same price at say $3/ gallon

The difference of 1326 gallons = $3978

"saved" over a $7630 higher price + $8850 more paid in intrest or + $12,569 you could have earned in intrest at 4% for 12.5 yrs
(many assumptions I know)

I'm glad that we are building hybrids for the sake of learning how to build better electric motors etc.

For a hybrid to pay off it is going to have to wident the performance difference between a gas only version, and last significantly longer, at present this does not appear to be the case.