New Car Comparisons

[northboundtrain]

Sitting home with a sick kid today, and I'm entertaining notions/fantasies of replacing the old dirty diesel with new car. Using official EPA estimates and MSRP, I've compared sticker price to fuel savings for the prius, corolla, and yaris. Figuring gas at $3.00/gal in today's dollars, I found that the pruis and yaris would each have to be driven 312,800 miles for the fuel savings of the prius to equal the difference in sticker price. This assumes equal maintanence costs, which is unlikely, especially given the prius would probably need two battery replacements over this many miles. For the corolla-prius comparison, the break-even point is 207,340 miles, again assuming equal maintanence costs.

A VW tdi (when they start U.S. Production again) would have an even higher break-even number of miles compared to an entry-level economy car given it's likely higher sticker price (not to mention maintanence costs).

Not that saving money is the only consideration, but likewise, mpg isn't the only consideration either when considering overall environmental impact (the batteries of a prius are extremely environmentally destructive to manufacture).

Anyway, this is just food for thought when trying to make sensible purchase decisions. . .