Small Cars and The Hourly Cost of Your Commute

Many people absolutely refuse to consider life on two wheels. Many of my readers here area already into bicycles or motorcycles. Some of my readers want to know what the 4-wheel options are, post oil. The obvious ones are either all electric recharging from the grid or solar array or alternative fuel you have neighborhood or personal access to when rationing finally kicks in. And with Iran's announcement of making weapons grade Plutonium in quantity yesterday, we really need to imagine life with mushroom clouds over the Middle Eastern OPEC oil fields. And soon. We may find our oil is radioactive and unusable. "If we can't have it, nobody can." It WOULD force us out of the Middle East. Considering all the Iranian engineers I've met were wicked smart, this is a very plausible scenario. Iran is almost out of oil itself, and they want to sell natural gas to India, but the USA has blown up their pipeline into Afghanistan and paid off Pakistan to make sure it isn't redirected there and leaned on the -istans to ensure Iran is blocked off completely. They're desperate. Annihilation, anyone? So yeah, each of us needs to think very seriously about a Plan B for getting to work without gasoline. In the meantime, gasoline is $4.10/gal here in California as of Sunday, according to the rumor I heard at the grocery store. And we really should count on the Federal Govt on jacking up gasoline taxes to pay for social programs which always benefit other people. I see a lot of Geo Metros on the highway during commute hours.

So what's a Geo Metro go for in running condition? In very good condition its around $1200-1300 and has 160K miles on it. That's a lot but this is a car last built in 1997. Its got a 3 cylinder engine from the Triumph motorcycle, pattern built by Suzuki motor company in Japan, then assembled in the USA. The fact that they're STILL RUNNING indicates that this is a reliable car. Change your oil, use the clutch properly (its manual only in most cases) and you'll enjoy around 45 mpg on your commute. This is the same as Prius claims to get, for 6% of the cost. Can you say: "duh?"

Speaking of Prius: the engine in the Prius is actually interesting, mechanically. It uses a special cycle to reduce engine friction and increase torque mechanically. This would provide a light car like the Metro, for instance, with a torque-rich engine for better accelleration at stoplights and up highway onramps and climbing hills. It would make Toyota's very small cars get much better gas mileage than the Prius for less money and weight because they would have no batteries weighing them down. This is precisely why Toyota doesn't put that engine in any other car. It would make the Prius look stupid, I expect. Of course, I don't actually HAVE one of these engines to play with to prove that, but I keep hoping someone will pull the engine from a wreck and put it into a go-kart or and old Honda CRX and find out its fast.

Drive it like you stole it.

My dad keeps talking about wanting a Smart 4Two. Those are around $13K used, with 12K miles on them, always very high revs. I worry any one of them he buys will have no rings and maybe even broken engine that we won't detect till later, so I want to price out a replacement engine. We saw a Scion iQ in the local supermarket parking lot after eating breakfast at IHOP. The iQ is very small. Its $16K new and 36 mpg due to the fact its only 2140 pounds. This is my idea of a light car. And Ultralight car is 900 pounds, but people aren't ready for that. This is a good middle step.

I think Dad is picturing driving the Smart something like the above with the Hayabusa motorcycle engine and the twin turbo chargers. Somehow I think the fuel economy with that might not be as good. Insurance might be a little higher too. According to the forums, the parts are all in Europe, not here, so you have to wait weeks for them to ship. Uh huh. This sounds like the Buddy Scooter, only with 2 more wheels.

Ford is releasing its 3-cylinder 1.0 Liter diesel in the USA soon. They've been running it in the EU for years now. Provided it will run properly on biodiesel without the lame color sensing lights they put into VW diesel engines that shuts them down if you run red farm diesel. Ford has a slightly bigger engine for their diesel Fiesta, a 1.4 L that's 94 HP. Not bad.

Of course, the vehicle I want up here is the Subaru AWD diesel with tow capacity so I can get a small trailer behind it for building materials or living in if need be. Naturally, Subaru only sells it everywhere else. They say the US market is saturated, which really means they have nobody competent doing any market research here. So maybe Mazda will get my money instead?

The engine sounds like it would be good. What about the cars? I don't need an SUV. Its just me, here. Show me a coupe or a subcompact or even an Rally-Sport-equivalent and I'll be interested. Considering the blizzard Tuesday, AWD is appreciated. It does help. Not perfect, but it helps. The rest of the time a bicycle or scooter or small displacement motorcycle works just fine up here.

Used Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla are common, though slightly expensive due to the fact they are easy to repair and lots of mechanics service them. If you've got a Honda or Toyota? Keep it running. That's usually cheaper than buying something else, no matter the fuel economy. You can also look into Hypermiling, but that's never as efficient as shortening your commute. Either live closer to work or work closer to home. Deal with the other costs.

What are the other costs? Simple math here. How long is your commute? What is your fuel economy? How many gallons of fuel a day? Divide the daily fuel cost by the 8 hour work day and that's how much of your wages goes to fuel.

With my 1.93 mile commute, gasoline lasts a long time for me, so I can absorb a high fuel price and still drive. Compare my lower wages than down in the Valley and a 60 mile (each way) commute to Sacramento or Roseville against the cost of the lost time and the $4.10/gal gasoline and I'm doing okay. Driving there in my current car would cost me 4-5 gallons per day. That's $20/day in fuel costs, at current prices. Divide by 8.0 hours of labor and you're looking at $2.50/hr in fuel cost, every day. That's how much of your wages you're writing off, just to fuel for that 120 mile per day drive. And that's with good fuel economy. With my 2 mile commute, 4 miles a day, and 21 mpg due to low speeds, my daily commute costs me 9.5 cents per hour.

With your typical SUV getting only 17 mpg? A 60 mile commute is 7.0 gal/day. $28.25/day in fuel costs at $4.00/gal. Which works out to $3.53/hr. of your wages going to fuel, each day. How long can you afford to work with that kind of commute and fuel economy? Can your boss give you a raise just because the fuel cost went up? No? His costs are rising too? No kidding. How long before you must find other solutions? When should you start thinking about them? Isn't now a good time for that?