Does this math work out?

FWIW:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/clunkers.asp

I have three Town Cars, one of which is definitely on the way out and qualified, but I didn't want to go from no repayment to $300 plus per month commitment when the economy sucks, my only debts are on real estate and I want to keep it that way.

aussiesmg wrote: my only debts are on real estate and I want to keep it that way.

+1

wE still have our 0% loan on the truck from 3 years ago when we bought it. Other than that we have our mortgage......

TJ wrote:

aussiesmg wrote: my only debts are on real estate and I want to keep it that way.

+1

+2. The Wife was toying with the idea - her Cherokee is getting a little long in tooth and I can't do as much to it as I'd like to at the moment - but after I pointed out that we'd end up with quite a hefty car payment if she clunkered it in for a Pious, we decided against it. Not to mention that it wouldn't be easy to get to some places we like to go for holidays in something like a Pious.

Seizing LS1's makes baby Jesus cry. That's all I have to say.

TJ wrote:

keethrax wrote: I'm not going to start driving a whole lot more just because it's cheaper,

You may not, but across the country as a whole greater efficiency will lead to a larger demand for gasoline (and foreign oil). Same as the CFL light bulbs. Switching to them may save you personally on your electric bill, but the net effect is a greater overall demand for electricity. Read up on Vermont's green program that is usually hailed as the best in the land. They spent a lot of money to subsidize energy savings, but with a steady population their energy use is growing despite all the greening up they've done.

sigh. Did you read the rest of my post? It specifically addresses why examples like that aren't terribly applicable. But you cut that part to essentially restate the bit mine was in response to.

Driving takes two things $$ and time. It's that second factor that makes most of those examples (definitely including your electricity one) nearly worthless if you try to extrapolate them to driving.

I'm on board with most of those examples. They're great examples showing up the illusion of savings via conservation in many cases. But blindly translating them to a different circumstance is silly.

For example, in my last house was in need of some insulation work. (It was a rental, so I didn't do it) if I paid a bunch of money to fix up the insulation and such, the house would be more efficient. But it wouldn't have saved me any money on heating. Instead, for the same amount of energy in, I would have been able to run it a bit warmer in these cold northern MN winters. This would be somewhat analogous to the examples used (not perfectly, but it illustrates the point anyhow).

Driving, however, is not. My days are pretty full. I'm not going to magically start driving more because gas is cheaper, (here's where you cut off the last quote, intentionally removing an important part, and distorting the meaning to restate the same stuff) as the cost of gas wasn't actually limiting my driving in the first place. Time was. I suspect most people, even with high gas prices just suck it up and pay, and don't cut their driving all that much. I mean, you still need to go to work, the store, get the kids to X, Y and Z, etc. Making driving cheaper (via a more efficient car) doesn't change those things, nor does it add more hours to the day to add more things that would require driving.

In every single one of the examples you presented, leveraging the increased efficiency into higher usage for the same cost, instead of reducing usage required little extra time from the end consumer. Driving does not fit that pattern.

EDIT: IN other words (and a bit hyperbolized), people are either too lazy, and won't drive more, or already too busy and won't drive more.

keethrax wrote: IN other words (and a bit hyperbolized), people are either too lazy, and won't drive more, or already too busy and won't drive more.

I fully agree.

Me doubling my fuel mileage (25 miles to work) would be the only way to impress me.

I get 25mpg now. I need a TDi.

I believe a season or two ago, Top Gear did an interesting sort of race. They put The Stig behind the wheel of a Prius and set him on his merry way on the Top Gear Test Track, with the instruction to go balls out (well, as close to balls out as you can go in a Prius anyway...). Jeremy, meanwhile, was put behind the wheel of a 400something horsepower BMW M3, and set on his merry way on the Top Gear Test Track, with the instruction to keep up with Stig. the big V8 powered M3 managed better mileage than the little inline 4 powered hybrid Prius did. if memory serves, with a Stig behind the wheel, a Prius will only do about 17mpg. by the same token, I can drive a big, powerful V8 sedan (Caddy CTS-V, Pontiac G8, Audi RS4, abovementioned M3, Dodge Charger SRT8, the list goes on and on) carefully and responsibly (ok maybe not with all that power at the command of my right foot, but for the sake of argument lets assume I can), and get quite respectable mileage for a car of that size. the point they, and I, are trying to make is that it's not what you drive, but how you drive it.

Bobzilla wrote: ^ And I got to sit by the wayside and watch as I had NO vehicles that would even qualify for the program. We (the smart ones who have purchased based on needs and not status) are the ones both penalized monetarily but also by not being allowed to benefit from this program. Double whammy. Thanks.

I wouldn't call an extra $15K or more of debt for a vehicle of questionable longevity "benefitting"...but thta's just my view of current consumerism and debt and all that. New car? No thanks! Heck...I don't have a driver new enough to qualify even if I DID want a new car.

Clem

Slyp_Dawg wrote: I believe a season or two ago, Top Gear did an interesting sort of race. They put The Stig behind the wheel of a Prius and set him on his merry way on the Top Gear Test Track, with the instruction to go balls out (well, as close to balls out as you can go in a Prius anyway...). Jeremy, meanwhile, was put behind the wheel of a 400something horsepower BMW M3, and set on his merry way on the Top Gear Test Track, with the instruction to keep up with Stig. the big V8 powered M3 managed better mileage than the little inline 4 powered hybrid Prius did.

So? A top gear stunt stacked heavily against a car they hate made it look bad. Gee, I'm shocked.

If you bought a prius to hit the track, you're an idiot.

If you bought a prius for long range highway cruising, you're an idiot.

If you use it for what it's designed to be good at, it's a decent (but not great) car.

Not a big fan of the Prius, but really, if you came away from watching that top gear stunt thinking anything other than "gee that was amusing" or maybe "gee, running a hybrid flat out isn't what it was made for" I'm not sure what else to say.

I'm one of very few people that benefitted well from the CFC program. Traded in a 1992 Camaro V8 for a 2008 Astra. Only improve economy by 9 MPG, so we only got $3500 from the Camaro. Through a normal trade, our car would have been worth about $700. Personal sale, due to its condition, would have gotten us about $1200.

Mind you, my wife was given the car by her father, who thought a V8 Camaro is a good replacement for a Neon. My wife hated the car for 3 years before we met, and because she hated it, she tried to kill it by not maintaining it. 2nd date was replacing the brake booster. Anyway, I saw how much work it needed and decided to talk her into getting something else. Unfortunately for us, it wasn't worth anything, so we kept a smoking, pinging, worn to death car on the road until we could afford something new. When the CFC program was first mentioned, we had toyed with selling it, but weren't successful at a price that would get us a pair of nice Hot Wheels cars, much less a replacement daily. At the end, we wanted the car to die in a fiery crash.

Bringing it back on topic, we traded in an actual clunker for a car that we wanted. We just wish that we could have gone used instead. With the price on the year-old Astra, that didn't matter much anyway.

I know I'm in the minority, but I'm okay with the program if it had stricter requirements. I think the car should have needed to be "uneconomical to repair" ais is the case in Cali with their scrappage program. Too many good cars being crushed.

Btw, we are driving more, but it's not because of better fuel economy. My wife got a job 30 minutes away that she would have passed up if we still had the old POS. I wouldn't have felt safe with her driving the Camaro, but I'm fine with her driving the Astra.

I thought the main purpose of the cash for clunkers program was to jumpstart the auto industry's sales? Maybe I wasn't listening, but I thought they did that to sell cars to people that wouldn't otherwise have bought one. Improving our carbon footprint was only a side benefit. Besides, when has ANYTHING the government done been designed to help us (the people) SAVE money? I thought they were trying to boost the economy, which generally requires more consumer spending....

all this miles per gallon crap...I used to get 40+ in my Bugeye and be driving the piss out of it most of the time. The dam 6 gallon fuel tank was a pain though @ .32 cents a gallon....had to get a second job....

keethrax wrote: *sigh*. Did you *read* the rest of my post? It specifically addresses why examples like that aren't terribly applicable. But you cut that part to essentially restate the bit mine was in response to.

I read it. I am not saying that you would personally drive more or less depending on your gas mileage. I am saying that a greater overall efficiency across the country will lead to more miles driven, not less.

It's not as though I leave the lamp on longer because I put in a CFL bulb or do more loads of laundry because I have an energy star washing machine. I was (trying to make) making a point about the big picture - not individual use.