I have a 2014 E-Hybrid as a loaner while my 2011 P4 is in for a transmission service, but that is a story for the "what the hell is wrong with my transmission thread.

After 8 days with the e-hybrid, I'm neither a fan or critic. Its cool to start the car and not hear anything but the overall economy is suspect to me. I commute about 100 miles total per day and there is some gas savings...however, it is surely not enough to convince me to buy an e-hybrid...all is all, it is an ok car, the novelty of owning an e-hybrid has worn off in only 8 days.

 

HOV lane access was the only selling point for us. And that was after I went to bat with Richmond over getting the car added to the list.

Hit the Sport button every now and then. The PSeH can scoot if you're willing to dig into the energy reserves.

 

The economy of buying a $100k hybrid is a complicated issue. Obviously it doesn't make any kind of financial sense if you're not interested in the performance capabilities as well. There are plenty of hybrids under $40k.

So, really, you have to compare the S e-Hybrid to the Panamera S. If you don't push the Sport button now and then, you're not really getting the S-level performance out of the car, because e-Power mode is very, very focused on fuel economy over power, even when you've depleted the battery and you're running on gas. The decision to have fun in a PSeH is a lot more deliberate than in any other sports car I've driven.

I don't know how the PSeH in Sport mode feels compared to the P4. Only you can answer that, whether it's significantly more fun. The PSeH is quite capable of putting out about twice the initial torque from a standing start, but you have to be the sort of hoonigan that enjoys doing that moderately often. I am, but not everyone is.

Once you're comparing apples-to-apples in power, you can look at fuel efficiency. I've done 1200 miles now on longer trips, and I generally get 33-35 MPG at 60-70 MPH. I've never, ever come close to that in any other sports car.

What sort of gas mileage were you getting on your commute, vs. now? If it's say 25 vs. 35, which may not be your actual figures, you're looking at saving about 260 gallons of gas a year, assuming you drive ~23,000 miles a year. That's about $800 / year, or $1000 if gas prices go back to what they were.

Which isn't really that much, compared to the total cost of ownership of the car. Sure, it's about 30% more fuel efficient, but it's 1% of the price of the car in annual savings.

I think you have to be motivated by something other than straight price vs. performance. For Ace, it was that HOV lane access. For me, it was simply about feeling less wasteful of a finite resource, oil, while still having my fun.

I think it's interesting that the BMW i8 is so much more popular than the PSeH. There's a friggin' waiting list for those, and dealers are charging markups over MSRP. Even though it's more expensive than the PSeH.