The MSRP for the 2014 Accord Hybrid is from $29,155 to $34,905.

The MSRP for the 2014 Accord Plug-in is $39,780.

A side by side comparison on the Honda website shows them to be identical except that the plugin shows about 1 MPG less than the hybrid (they are, however both hybrids).

And add a "charger" installation to your garage for $1800, which is actually . . . (drumroll . . . ) a $1000 extension cord because the charger is inside the vehicle and you come to about $41,500 to plug-in your plug-in.

The Plug-in, btw, will only give you 13 electric-only miles.

The Hybrid sounds like an outstanding vehicle and I am interested in it. However, I like the idea of charging the battery to get some nearly free electric miles.

My inquiry is 'What is the difference between the hybrid and the plug-in?' I suspect it is simply that they allow you to pre-charge the battery, which is about the same in each vehicle, but I hope there is more in exchange to putting down $11,500 to $6500 more on the Plug-in and getting just 13 miles of driving.

I realize it rarely makes sense to just go on the math, but here it is. Taking the extreme case of a minimal difference of $6500, charging TWICE a day, driving every day and no time value of money means about a 9 year payback by buying the plug-in over just the hybrid. A worse scenario would be $11,500 difference, one charge daily, yielding a 30 year payback for your extra dinero up front.

Any thoughts on this?

Cheers . . .

 

Well, if it IS true that the ONLY difference is the ability to charge the battery, then it actually makes a lot of sense to do that math. And the math says it doesn't make sense. So I'd carefully check whether that really is the only difference.

 

The plug-in also has a larger battery, with loss of trunk space to accommodate it.