Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Originally Posted By: rshaw125
Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Most of our driving isn't optional. Anyone commuting to work at any length rarely drives anywhere near a substantial % of that amount in discretionary driving. When the price goes up you're just more careful about the least expensive part of your usage. The bulk of your consumption remains the same. By far my wife's 50mpd commuting uses the most fuel in our household. The bulk of the usage. I use in 2 weeks what she uses in 4-6 days. That won't change.
Yes but you can change which car you drive. Replacing an existing one with a much more economical one.
To what gain? Paid for 18mpg jeep. Costs per week in fuel: Currently about $50 average.
Cost of anything new: $300/minimum. Annual mileage in excess of minimum lease agreements.
Cost $75/week plus mileage penalty.
The thing would have to produce fuel out of the back end.
I assume you could get old manual trans saturn/escort/corolla/sentra/neon money for your jeep, then you get 40 mpg with no penalty. Plus lower maintenance(4wd vs 2wd), insurance costs. You'll save $1500+ per year now, and maybe much more if gas goes way up.
We do indeed have access to my son's 96 NEON and it will get up to 38 mpg. Fine. Now duplicate that for everyone and you'll have a 100% high demand for used NEON'S (insert whatever) and absolutely no new car market.
Like most "solutions" they won't work across the board. It's not below me to buy or drive a used car, but there will always be that reduced ROI on fixing an aging chassis. That's why I own jeeps, the parts availability will make them easy to repair and make the expensive capital outlay of a new vehicle unnecessary. The avoided costs are the avoided costs. It will make no more $$$ and "sense" to get an economical car unless you've already got a $3600-$5400 new car habit to begin with. You already have used free of charge.
Let's even go with a $3500 beater that gets 35 mpg. My wife's fuel costs are about $2500/year currently. Now reduce that expense in half and we're spending 2010 money that will take about 36months to recover in avoided costs. Just assume that fuel costs will be inflated bucks as you move out meaning that the $1250 figure should be valid in terms of equivalent purchasing power. That is, it will be whatever number that buys that amount of fuel in 2010.
