Wind Chill Pearl

Some of you may recall back in late summer of last year, we put ourselves in the market for another vehicle. My wife's vehicle is getting long in the tooth by the number of year it is but has pretty low mileage. We have a daughter that has been working after school, perhaps this summer as well, and will soon be headed off for college. Although maybe not known in other parts of this country or world, driving is a mandatory thing here because there is no mass transportation. Then there was the pandemic market after effects. We had been hearing rumors of people ordering and then waiting for upwards of 18 months for their vehicle to arrive. 

So we put in an order for a RAV4 Prime which is their hybrid vehicle that also has battery storage enough for electric only driving for up to 40 miles. My thought was that my wife could drive back and forth to work, those low miles, on battery power only and then if she wanted to drive the 100+ miles to the city to shop, she could using the hybrid gas powered engine. It seemed the best of both worlds and came in a small enough package my wife would feel comfortable driving it.

We've been waiting every since. I think we were called a couple times over that eight or nine months but always for other vehicles that didn't interest us such as an all electric sports car and I think a full size hybrid SUV. Mostly we heard nothing. 

As time went by, I decided perhaps I should expand my mind a little bit and consider just their regular hybrid version of the RAV4 as well. It is essentially the same as the Prime but lacks the extra batteries and 40 miles of pure electric driving capacity. It still has the same gas powered hybrid engine that powers the electric motors that turn the wheels and thus gets twice as good of fuel mileage as the standard gas powered one does. It is a step in the right direction but not as far as we were willing to go. But they are in short supply as well.

My biggest worry about all of this is that one day, we would get a call saying they finally had a Prime or a Hybrid on a boat heading their way but it was white. It isn't my favorite of colors for a vehicle. It shows dirt really easily. If that happened, we would have to make a gut call, do we get it or wait another year to 18 months for the next one which could also end up being white? 

As it turned out, we got the call yesterday. They still haven't received a Prime but they had a Hybrid model on a boat heading towards the west coast of the United States with our local dealer's name on it. It was "Wind Chill Pearl" on the color description but looks very much white to me. Were we interested in it? We had a few hours to decide before they would sell it to the next one on the list.

My wife happened to be on a plane heading to a conference in California at the time but was slated to land within an hour. When we finally got in touch, we talked it over and decided to accept it. I suspect with the high interest rates, slowing economy and more computer chips hitting the market, that the market for cars is softening after two years and more will be available in the coming year. But other than the color, which my wife doesn't mind and she is the one driving it, it ticked all the boxes for us other than it would have been nice to be a Prime. 

There was some uncertainty for us about getting a Prime. Could we charge it with a standard outlet fast enough or would we have to complete an expensive electrical upgrade to our house to put in a faster charging station? How well would the extra batteries and components last in our rough on vehicle rural environment? Finally, the Prime is a about 20% more expensive that the Hybrid model. It is worth the premium at this point in our lives?

I let the dealer know and put a down payment on it to reserve it though it is on a boat in the Pacific Ocean somewhere and will not actually make it to this part or rural Iowa until late next month. My oldest is of course thrilled beyond words because she can start using my wife's old RAV4 more often instead of borrowing it when available. It will certainly reduce the number of trips I have to make dropping her off and picking her up for her extra curricular activities and job. But it will be another vehicle to maintain until she completes college and is off on her own somewhere. At least the uncertainty will hopefully be over in another month.

Somewhere on the Pacific Ocean