When you apply the brakes there are little generators in the wheels that charge the battery pack (its known as, "regenerative braking") and if need be the vehicles electrical system can charge the battery pack.
The major appeal of hybrids isnt so much that they are cheaper to operate than traditional vehicles, its the fact that they cause less pollution.
For me personally, untill the cost of hybrid technology comes down, the benefits of a hybrid doesnt justify the cost.
Also, yes the battery pack costs about $5,000 to replace but over a 5 year span you will save enough on fuel to pretty much pay for the replacement of the battery pack. Toyota warrantys it for 100,000 miles, so the possibility of it failing isnt something that I would really worry about.

I suspect there are a lot of people like me who want to wait and see if some of the kinks get worked out of the hybrids. Also with time, the engineering will improve and the costs will likely come down. I think of them as experimental still.

Any ballpark on the gas savings compared to a non-hybrid? How about Insurance rates? As I have said elsewhere, sometimes it's the insurance payments that get to me.

Just a few things straight. I have a 2006 Highlander Hybrid 4wd-i non limited model since one year. Here in Canada, the battery warranty is 8 years and I would certainly not believe that it would just fail just after because the way it charges is very smooth to the battery. To be sure you are covered for the rest, you can always extend warranty up to 7 years here (which I did take especially for the electric motors). As for battery charging, it regenerates to the battery when braking (not starting) in a gradual way from MG2 (front motor) and MGR (rear motor) or when the ICE runs (from MG1): look at the animations from the Toyota Hybrid site

The best fuel economy is when you are deeply stuck in traffic with stop and go movements and the ICE shuts down completely keeping the A/C and all other accessories on battery. Only the heater needs the ICE in winter. It also runs on regular fuel which is cheaper (rare in this class of vehicule). On the freeway only the ICE runs (except when accelerating) so it has the same economy as a regular non hybrid model (2006-2007) . 2008 model hybrid will probably have better economy than the new 3.5 L non hybrid model

My car insurance was also lower than the non-hybrid model. I asked before buying for the 2 models. I had no problems whatsoever with the vehicule that has a very reassuring maintenance record.

I feel this car has a lot of proven technology for the money as they are in the third generation. In fact it is the most advanced Hybrid SUV (with the twin Lexus of course) on the market as for now and I can believeToyota sells the base hybrid model below cost.

Some people buy it for the SULEV achievement, some for the fuel economy (compared to the same size guzzlers) and many secretly for the performance (it is a surprisingly fast linear accelerating vehicule when pushed hard) it can deliver (forget the economy then).

Thanks for such an honest review ....it's good to read one by someone who knows what they're talking about, so it's appreciated.

Vicki,
That's why I like these forums. All the literature on the cars and all the paid reviews are suspect. I like to hear what REAL people say about them in real life day to day use.

Very true. it's refreshing to hear from actual people who use the products than reading from some website or literature from a dealership.

Kenneth,
Exactly. I can't recall anyone every telling me that they went into a dealership and had the sales staff tell him a car was a piece of junk!

I'm lucky though, I'm related to the guy who sells me my cars. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/460.gif)

LOL ...but thanks to an ex brother in law who was a dealer and who sold me a lemon of a car ...it threw a rod a week after I bought it ...I don't even trust family most of the time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/s10.gif)

relationships can sometimes Help , But my luck i would get stuck (IMG:style_emoticons/default/460.gif)

The tax credit helped but they stopped it this year or last year so it won't help any longer. I talked with someone who has one and they are okay with it. Said it will pay for itself in about five years with gas at 3.00 a gallon but they aren't sure it will last that long.

It's not starting that helps charge the motor, but stopping does. It's essentially the reverse of an electric motor: instead of taking power and converting it into motion, it takes motion and converts it to power.

I don't think Toyota has much, if any, left in the tax credit area. The government was only giving the credits for something like the first 60,000 cars from each manufacturer.

I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the UK offer consumer tax credits for a few years on hybrids, but they stopped the plan.

I think it's worth it. As the wise saying goes, "You get what you pay for." It's a great car and the $30,000 price range is not bad at all for a mid size car like the highlander. It's one of the most reliable hybrids. What does a little increase of price make a difference. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/57.gif)

I am on the verge of a purchase and have been torturing myself on this exact issue for the last month. I really WANT to get the Hybrid, but I am struggling to justify it.

The thing is, if you do the math, for the average driver it will NEVER come close to making sense economically. With gas in the U.S. averaging $4/gallon (and that is standard fuel whereas the Highlander would prefer premium fuel), I assumed for my calculations $5/gallon. Then I assumed the real world average fuel benefit of the comparable non-Hybrid Highlander model of 5/MPG (it’s really 4-5 based on extensive research, see below). Then I extensively price shopped for my preferred model (the Limited with the Nav system), both going to multiple dealers and using every major online car site and Internet dealer quote site to get the “real world” prices available.

The result? You break even on the fuel cost making up for the purchase price around 250,000 miles! So for the previous poster who said 5 years, they must be incredibly high mileage drivers.

And that doesn’t count the higher maintenance costs of the Hybrid on average or the somewhat higher insurance costs (not way higher like the previous poster but meaningfully higher based on 5 quotes in New Jersey). Not the mention that there have been more than a fair # of posters with strange and concerning mechanical issues with the Hybrid, like the computer system screwing up the “regenerative” braking and actually causing the car to surge or not stop.

The real issue is the price is so much higher than the real world cost of the non-Hybrid. It turns, for the Limited in the U.S. at least, to be a 33% premium over the non-Hybrid. It may start as $4K on paper (which is what the dealer claimed and I read in some reviews), but that doesn’t mean much because of the following factors: 1) The Hybrid actually sells for very close to MSRP. The non-Hybrid sells for very close the dealer invoice. This more than doubles the $4K price gap right there; 2) Toyota (kind of slimy if you ask me) makes some totally no-brainer essential features that are standard in the non-Hybrid “options” in the Limited Hybrid, like air conditioning for anything but the front of the car. By the time you add this and climate control, there’s an extra few thousand!; 3) Because of the sudden drop in standard SUV sales, even Toyota (which historically didn’t have to do deals like this) are offering cash back incentives and special financing for the non-Hybrids but not the Hybrids. The net result is even before you calculate the benefit of the special financing, the out-the-door difference is about $12,000 for essentially the same vehicle (actually the non-Hybrid has a newer generation V engine than the one they based the Hybrid on) minus the 4-5 miles/gallon. The delta is several thousand more if you finance over 4-5 years.

In terms of fuel, on paper the Hybrid gets 25/27 with a combined 26 MPG average while the non-Hybrid is 17/23 with a combined 20 average (still best in its 7 seat class even without the Hybrid). However, based on my research the actual difference is smaller, more like 4-5, sometimes less depending on the driver. By research I mean reading dozens of professional reviews and literally hundreds of user reviews, having test driven both several times and making a point of checking the cumulative fuel average on the vehicles computers at the dealers and talking with several owners of both I know. Checking the computers at the dealerships is interesting because the dealer rep cars typically have several thousand miles of similar real-world driving by a wide variety of drivers. Based on this, I saw a 4-5 MPG difference. From reading all the reviews and discussion on this, the reason the real world difference is smaller is because the Hybrid is particularly sensitive to many factors to achieve its results, more than typical cars. It likes warmer weather, special oil, special fuel (no ethanol in it, which is nearly impossible in some States in some seasons) and drivers who accelerates from stops very gradually, slow to stops very gradually, never drive above 60 MPH and who carefully focus on “coasting.” Some of the Hybrid drivers even talk about removing the 3rd row seating to save on vehicle weight to try and achieve the target Toyota MPG (to which I wonder if they don’t need it why they just didn’t get the Ford Escape which has much better MPG but that’s another story). If you don’t actively do all these things you’ll do fine but see a much smaller MPH benefit over the non-Hybrid.

All that leaves is helping the environment. But even this seems iffy. The research has shown that the relatively minor fuel benefit to getting a Hybrid is a trivial benefit to carbon emissions and the environment versus more sincere efforts like setting your heater temp a couple degrees cooler in the winter or buying a good used car (since the carbon emitted making these hybrids at the factory dwarfs the benefits of driving them). For that matter, your lawn mower is giving off enough emissions to account for 40 cars on average so if you really want to help the environment, mow your lawn less or use an electric mower. That will reduce your carbon footprint more than a long lifetime of driving a Hybrid!

So, I am curious if anyone has an angle I have missed? I really want to get the Hybrid but $12K is a lot of difference given all the above and I am leery to pay all that and not really help the environment meaningfully.

Worth it?...I got my 08 HiHy for 40K ($500 over dealer invoice). I get a $4400 CO state rebate. I'm getting 29 mpg.

Not sure where the $12K figure is from?