Thinking about buying a Hybrid for (mostly) work?
November 10, 2009 in Buying & Selling
Did you know that you can save fuel and run your car on water
Jason asked:
I am in the market for a new car and I drive around 300 miles a week which I am reimbursed 58.5 cents per mile for… I am weighing the cost of the Civic Hybrid into my shopping because I already wanted that kind of car anyways, a Honda Civic that is. My point is I really like the car AND it does save me money even though its more expensive but factoring in the miles I drive doesn’t this vehicle make more sense for me than a non hybrid? Looking a year or two down the road what will gas prices be? Won’t this vehicle have a higher resale value, being a Civic and a Hybrid, than a non Hybrid in a couple of years?
Did you know that you can save fuel and run your car on water
Make numbers. Hybrid cars are not cheap. The price of the car vs the “savings” in gasoline does not make sense.
It is a better choice to convert your car to run on GAS (LPG / CNG). The cost of the fuel is roughly 1/2 or the gasoline. You have almost the same power, exhaust is much (very much!) cleaner, and you can run your car on either fuel.
Also, the cost of a conversion is low when compared with the price tag of a hybrid, and you can detach the system anytime and transfer it so a similar car for a low price.
On top of it, I don´t think an hybrid have a better resale price.
Let’s assume you drive 16000 miles per year and it’s largely highway miles. The standard Civic with an automatic trans gets EPA est 36 MPG highway while the hybrid gets 45 MPG. Therefore, you will use about 433 gallons of gas in a regular Civic vs 355 gallons in the hybrid. At $4.00/gallon, that’s a $312 total fuel savings on the hybrid vs the non-hybrid. The regular Civic starts at $15,000 (19,900 for an EX-L) while the Hybrid starts at $22,600 (24,350 with Nav). So the price difference is anywhere to from $2700 to $9350.
That means at today’s fuel prices, it will take about 8 years to recover the extra cost. The real wild card here is fuel prices and I would not expect them to come down. Some have said they could go as high as $10-$15 in which case the hybrid would be a great investment, but you’ll have to go with your gut on this one.