A touch of gas

I get a kick out of how emotional people are about their vehicles. Somehow their ride seems to be an expression of who they think they are in the world.

I suppose I'm the same way. I'm a cheap bastard, but I don't want to drive a beater either. A total lack of mechanical ability makes the old car option into a nightmare. I also like things that are pretty techie.

We have two cars, a 2008 Prius and a 2012 Scion IQ. The Prius is a hybrid, and the Scion is a tiny gas car. In fact, it gets the best gas mileage of any conventionally fueled vehicle, tying the Smart Car.

Here's what I mean about me being a cheap bastard. Helen and I will be driving to California this year and back. The one-way drive will be over 1441 km. While down there I'm sure we'll average something like a hundred km of driving a day, but let's half that for my comparison. So we will drive 1441 km down, cruise about for 3000 km, and then drive home.

Using US gas prices, the trip will cost me $352 bucks. This assumes that we take the Scion.

Let's say we decide that the tiny IQ just “isn't us” that we need more room. Suppose we were to trade it in on a 2013 Toyota Corolla. The Corolla is a pretty mainstream vehicle and has a good reputation for mileage.

A brand new Corolla could burn $384 bucks on the exact same trip. Not bad.

However, for most people a Corolla is also just too small. My parents used to travel widely and chose a Dodge Grand Caravan. This is closer to what most people like, what with all the big vehicles around.

In a 2013 Grand Caravan the California drive would cost $523.

The fact is, however that it isn't a Corolla or a Grand Caravan versus our Scion IQ.

For this trip we'll be taking our much larger and more fuel efficient 2008 Prius. It is much bigger than a Corolla and gets better mileage than a Scion IQ.

The Prius fuel bill will be $290.

But is that really a fair comparison. My five-year-old car competing against a 2013 Corolla and a 2013 Grand Caravan. I think not. Let's substitute my current dream car. That would be a 2013 Toyota Prius c.

The California drive in that car would cost $264.

That's less than 2/3 the cost for a Corolla, and about half the price of a Grand Caravan.

And that's just one trip.

Let's take the Prius c, a Corolla, and a Grand Caravan over a ten year life span. Let's drive each a conservative 10,000 km per year and fill the tank with currently priced Canadian gas.

$15,876 for the Dodge Caravan

$10,949 for the Corolla

$ 6,345 for the Prius c

Like I said, I'm a cheap bastard.