Payback period for 3 hybrids, about 30 years. link to spreadsheet.

[JohnWxy]

IF you want to evaluate a hybrid just based on economic terms I put together a little spreadsheet that computes payback period for a CAmry, Honda Civic and the Ford Fusion hybrids. I've got links in there to where I got the price and mileage data.

http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/Hybrid_MPG.xls

I assumed $2.00 for the price of gas and 12,000 miles per year driving. I divided the cost saved per year into the cost difference for the hybrid model to come up with the payback period. The payback periods range from 31 to 38 years. If you want to change the miles or gas price (or anything else on the sheet, for that matter) feel free.

[Cant trust em]

1. Why $2 for a gallon of gas?

What is the analysis for $2.50? Sorry, but I don't have time to do the calculations myself.

[JohnWxy]

3. as i said you can change anything in the spreadsheet you want. The spreadsheet does the work for you

using $2.50 for gas you get 26 to 30 years.

[Cant trust em]

8. that's why Microsoft Excel is awesome. nt

[JohnWxy]

9. I agree.

[Arctic Dave]

2. 2.00 for gas? Not for long.

[county worker]

4. I get 10 years like this

car a $30000
car b $25000

cost of car a over car b $5000

Car a mileage 50 mpg
car b mileage 25 mpg

miles driven /yr 12000

Car a's cost $480 (240 gal x $2)

Car b's cost $960 (480 gal x $2)

Diff in one year $480

$5000 extra cost / $480 = 10.42

[JohnWxy]

6. Car A , car B - are they comparable? I compared Car A, ICE to Car A, Hybrid.

The Civic hybrid got a 42% improvement in mpg. I don't think you'll find a car that gets 100% better mpg as a hybrid than the same car with an ICE.

By the way, what car gets 50 mpg Combined city and highway? Or were you considering a Harley?

[TreasonousBastard]

5. It gets worse when you think of trading in a...

perfectly good car and getting a hybrid.

I ran the numbers myself when gas was only a little over two bucks and I was running to Boston and DC several times a week. Get $4-5,000 trade-in on my $7,000 car that was giving me an honest 35mpg highway and no trouble. Spend a net 18-19,000 or so for a Prius, maybe more with taxes and fees and such, and even more for required collision insurance and interest on the loan...

So, I'm now in the hole for 15-20 grand and while driving 50-75,000 miles a year saving maybe 900 gallons of gas a year. Even at 4 bucks a gallon, I'm losing money with any new car, no matter what the mileage.

(So, even if I had to replace the car I had, another used one for around 5 grand would be the way to go.)

[spinbaby]

7. When I bought my Prius

Gas was a about $2.85 a gallon. I figured it would break even with the less-expensive Civic I was also looking at in about 80,000 miles. That's about four years of driving for me. Gas is only about $2.00 now, but it was twice that a year ago, so I imagine 80,000 miles is a good estimate for break even.

[NYC_SKP]

10. Of course there are benefits greater than personal financial payback.

Not least of which is supporting a new and progressive technology with your pocketbook.

And making a statement, (not a personal one necessarily) by being out there among all the fucking SUVs.

We are so pathetically behind the rest of the world, it's embarrassing.

And gas is more expensive for me, I've already recovered the extra expense after 51,000 miles in my Pruis, compared to my former car, a Volvo V40 wagon, which had less storage space behind the front seats.

I wish the seats were more comfortable, though.

:patriot:

[Fledermaus]

11. This is one of the reasons I would like to see more hydraulic hybrids.

The add cost for a hydraulic hybrid is quite low. They have projected paybacks of only one to three years.

http://www.epa.gov/oms/technology/420f04019.pdf


42mpg BMW 5 Series Hydraulic Hybrid uses no batteries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7MGV5SLv-A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJw5AvvxBqg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPSob1gH_wk

[JohnWxy]

15. Wow! $600 extra cost! I didnt' know these were developed this far?

You really should send this info here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/">CONTACT US
President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history. To send questions, comments, concerns, or well-wishes to the President or his staff, please use the form below:>

[Fledermaus]

18. Yes, the first commercial systems are being sold now. We will know in about 24 months!

how well they perform.

Gosh, I would think the administration knows about hydraulic hybrids, the EPA crated them.

[JohnWxy]

20. The reason for emailing them about it is just to be citizen lobbyist. - Yes, they know about them

but, perhaps hearing from people saying "USE THIS TECHNOLOGY" might have a motivating affect. People in ALL governments, even Democratically controlled ones can use a kick in the rear now and then.

Remember, they are dealing with a lot of things, and also, the governemnt is very big, it's often the case that some messages don't get through to the people at the top deciding policies and designing programs. While people in the renewable fuels laboratory may know of this technology don't assume everybody in the WH or even at the top of the Energy Dept know about it.

[excess_3]

12. the electrification of personal transport, you have to start somewhere

btw, I drive the Prius, Camry and Escape hybrids,
all the time

[diane in sf]

13. I used the Ford row and plugged in 100mpg (plug-in hybrid for mostly short trips running on battery)

price of $22,270 (lower priced Prius cost) and $5.00 gasoline (I was paying more last year when the pirates were running wild). Payback time around 6 years vs conventional Ford. I can live with that--I mostly want to fix my expenses for retirement. Also a predominantly electric car should require less maintenance that a normal combustion engine.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Problem there

A plug-in hybrid requires more battery capacity than a lower priced Prius, and that's where the serious cost difference rears its ugly head. (Call it $10,000 for the extra battery capacity.)

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/04/27/hymotion-launching-prius-plug-in-conversion-kits/

[JohnWxy]

16. ford is selling a plug-in hybrid for $22,270???? Are you STILL paying $5.00 a gallon?

Where do you live? ..oh SF. do you still pay $5.00 a gallon?

[diane in sf]

21. no--$2.27, but the cost could go up again. I just used the Ford row in the spreadsheet

no existing plug-in vehicle for Ford yet. I'm costing out a theoretical plug-in priced for mass market with possible hideous gasoline prices (which could occur again for any number of reasons--including greed, war, trade embargoes, natural and unnatural disasters).

I remember only 23 years ago when you had to have $2M dollars worth of computing power in a refrigerated room to design and prepress a catalog for print. I remember 13 years ago when a megabyte of RAM cost $1000 and running one filter in Photoshop took 15 minutes of computer time. My first scanner cost $2000 in 1992, now I can buy a much better one for $100.

I feel we're on a similar path with batteries. My camera, laptop and cell phone batteries are so much better and longer lasting than ones just a few years older.

[JohnWxy]

23. With regard to the example of integrated circuit prices, please note that as in your

example (the scanner) back in the mid 80's personal computers (the item which initially drove up the demand for ICs and enabled their prices to come down) were going about $2,000 to $3,000. With Hybrids the marginal price is about $4,000 however, this is on top of an expenditure for the typical car of anywhere from $16,000 to $20,000. So the cost that you are looking at is $22,000 to $26,000 (using Honda's "low" price hybrid as a basis). THis puts this expenditure at about 40% to 50% of the median income in the U.S. This will make growing the sales of hybrids a bit tougher than growing the sales of PCs ( and Integrated Circuits). THe cost of the plug-ins when they are introduced is likely to be somewhere around $40,000 to $50,000.


Also keep in mind, not everybody goes out and buys a new car every year but more like every 7 years and that period I believe will stretch a bit because of our current Republican Deregulation Dystopia, which we won't recover from but only slowly. And of course, not everybody can go out and buy NEW. Many people buy used cars. We sell anywhere from 10 million to 14 million cars a year (although we may not hit even 10 million in 2009). So this slows the rate at which you can grow hybrid sales.

If you look at the spreadsheet here: http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/voltz.xls">Volt Timeline you will see that even with very strong sales growth numbers it takes years to build up to the numbers needed to make a significant difference in terms of reducing total gasoline consumption. (this spreadsheet assumes initial mpg for plug-ins of 100 clining to 234 mpg)

the green colored cells are "input" cells if yo click on one you can change the data therein. You move between them using the TAB key and you can change any of the assumptions such as initial sales, sales growth rate, mpg to see how changing the assumptions (realistically changing them) doesn't change the results all that much.

[JohnWxy]

17. I couldn't find anything saying Ford is sellilng plug-ins but this is what i did find, but no prices

mentioned. How did you buy one for $22,000?

http://ford.digitalsnippets.com/environment/


Ford Motor Company is another step closer to putting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles into production with supplier Johnson Controls-Saft’s announcement Tuesday that the battery maker plans to build its first U.S. cell manufacturing facility for Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery systems in Holland, Mich.

Ford recently entered into a partnership with Johnson Controls-Saft to develop an advanced Li-ion battery system to power Ford’s first commercial plug-in hybrid (PHEV) as part of its electrification strategy.

Ford will use Li-ion battery systems to power:

a pure battery electric (BEV) Transit Connect commercial van in 2010

a BEV passenger car developed jointly with Magna International by 2011
a plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) and next-generation hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) by 2012

[JohnWxy]

22. Now, now let's not pretend a plug-in hybrid is going to be sold for the $22,000 more like $47.5 K

That is based upon GM's statement. Not much more to go on.

I updated the http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/Hybrid_MPG.xls">spreadsheet for an estimated plug-in hybrid, since you brought it up.

I used $47,500 for the cost and 100 mpg for mileage. Payback would be 40 years.

I also put in figures for Ford's EcoBoost (also callled Bobcat) engine. This is an ethanol enabled turbocharged engine which they are saying will get 25% to 30% better mileage than the typically powered ICE car and will cost $600 to $1,000 extra to; the buyer (mass produced). They are planning to introduce this engine in 2010.

Payback for the EcoBoost engine is 4 years.

speadsheet link: http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/Hybrid_MPG.xls

[JohnWxy]

25. CORRECTION. I USED $37,500 IN THE SPREADSHEET NOT THE $47.5 MENTIONED IN CMT 22.

GM has been talking about $37,500 as a ballpark figure for the Volt.

I have not yet reduced the savings in gas cost for the Volt by the cost of recharging, which GM said would be about $200 per year. I believe that would bump the break even period from 40 to 64 years.

IF you include the cost charging ($200 per year) and put gas at $4.00 a gallon the payback for the Volt would be 25 years.

(you can change the spreadsheet yourself to check my results).

[LeftyMom]

19. You get to drive some hybrids in the carpool lane anytime here.

Back when I had a commute that would have saved me an hour a day. :shrug:

Not that I'm in the market for a new car, either hybrid or ICE. Neither would be a good financial decision compared to buying used, though I would consider a few hybrid models for my next new-to-me car if I can score a good deal on one.

[kristopher]

24. New report predicts 32.7M electric cars by 2015

New report predicts 32.7M electric cars by 2015

ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS, the electronics industry market research and knowledge network, announces the availability of a new report entitled "Worldwide Nanotechnology Electric Vehicle Market Shares Strategies, and Forecasts".

Electric vehicles represent a quantum shift in transportation. The design trajectories are varied; the opportunities are significant as a quantum shift occurs in what the vehicle basic functions are and how the vehicle works. The car companies that leverage the market opportunity to shift to a new paradyne are likely to succeed. There are others who merely try to migrate existing styles and designs to electric vehicles. Buggy whips come to mind.

Markets for electric vehicles at 685 units in 2008 are anticipated to reach 32.7 million autos shipped by 2015, growing in response to demand for a renewable energy powered vehicle that lowers the total cost of ownership by a significant amount. Lithium-ion batteries used in cell phones and PCs, and in cordless power tools are proving the technology to power electric vehicles.

http://www.nanovip.com/node/54589

Originally posted by WTMusic at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=115