Posted by
grad_1986 on Thursday, August 13, 2009 9:12:00 PM
Well Obama got his way. He got the GREEN car of his dreams. The recharge-able Chevy volt said to get an estimated 230 mpg. Of course the car goes for a whopping $40,000 (but according to Al Gore.... saving a planet....priceless). There's some dirty secrets about this car that needs to be pointed out first.
If you do the math (and as a computer engineer, I can't pass it up) the car will on average take about 26 years to pay for itself. That's right!
26 years!!
Here is the math.
First lets assume the average driver drives 12,000 miles per year and currently drives a car getting 15 mpg and the price of gas is $3.00 per gallon.
Doing the math, the average person will save about $2200 per year in gas (I don't know how much they will spend in added electricity bills at home however so I won't take that into account).
If the Chevy Volt costs 40,000 and the person gets the $7500 back from the government and trades in their car for say 5,000 they will have a bill of about $31,100 (including tax). Now assume they take an car loan for 8% at 5 years the total amount paid becomes
$37,800
Now divide that by $2200 and you get 17 years. But wait there is more! You will need to replace the battery pack every 10 years and they are estimated to be $10,000 a pop. So doing a little more math you will need to replace the batter 2 times so in the end it comes out to
26 years
Longer if I took into account your increased electrical bill at home (unless of course you run an extension cord from your neighbors outdoor outlet at night and use HIS electricity).
Let's face it. Cars like the Chevy Volt are nice but not practical for most people. If you think buying one is going to save you money in the long run, think again. Also if you think driving one will some how save the planet, think again. Just where do you think this car will get its electricity from? The air? No! Most likely from coal-fired generation plants... that's where! All you did was shift the problem from one location (under the hood of your car) to a plant somewhere outside your town.
Now of course the price of these cars will come down and make the math more amiable to getting one. Also, if gas were to jump back up to $5.00 then it would take less time (13 years in all) to pay for itself but given the current economic climate. But I don't see either of those happening anytime soon.
NOTES:
- If you trade in a car for 5000 that gets 25 mpg, the car NEVER pays for itself as the battery replacement costs every 10 years can never be recouped.
- If you trade in a car for 20,000 that gets 25 mpg it will still take 39 years to recoup the costs
- If you trade in a car for 20,000 that gets 15 mpg then it will take 9 years (this is the best case scenario)