Date:         Mon, 24 Apr 2006 03:18:04 -0700
Reply-To:     Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Subject:      Re: Local gas prices
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
              reply-type=original

I think what concerns most people (at least Americans) isn't necessarily the
actual cost of gas but the actual cost of the driving they have to do taken
altogether. You'd like to have cheap gas and better mileage but that's only
part of it. At some point there'll be an event horizon for each of us where
we can either afford to drive or we can't.

> -  live in a place where you don't have to drive.  Yup, that means you
> have
> to live NEAR OTHER PEOPLE!  Horrors!  Most Americans don't want to.
> Including a lot of vanagonauts, as far as I can tell.

There are a number of trade-offs there, most of which fall into the
negative, IMO.
The difference in the cost of housing in a highly populated area vs. where
I'm living now would easily exceed any savings I would see even if I got rid
of my vehicles altogether, which isn't an option anyway. Probably wind up
paying for parking on top of everything else. Added to that the other issues
of crime, filth and all the other problems that go with overcrowding and
it's not an option at all. In terms of actual cost it'd be a big negative...
and the more people that did that, the more of a negative it would be, as
density drives up housing costs. It's cheaper to live in the boonies, no
matter how 'cool' the cities may be. Healthier, too.

> -  don't drive a vehicle that gets less than 50 mpg.  Yeah, no vanagons.
> Get a Prius.

A Prius gets aroung 45 mpg in real-world driving. That isn't much better
than my Rabbit got some 20-odd years ago. The true cost of owning a Prius
based on 15k miles per year runs to about 36k over five years, 10k in the
first year and about 6k per year for the next four years. I doubt if it cost
me 6k to run my Vanagon for two years, never mind one. Assuming the Prius
gets 29 mpg better than the Vgon, I'd save about 1600 a year in gas at
today's prices. That wonderful gas mileage would only put me in the hole
about 1500 bucks a year. Lucky me. That's assuming I could run right out and
buy a new car if I wanted to. I'm much better off getting that Rabbit back
on the road. If I get into biodiesel or WVO I can even 'feel good' about it,
eh?

A Prius might as well be a phone booth for all I'd get out of it. I can't
get my family in it and I couldn't really carry anything else if I could.
This goes to a point you made in your other email:

"Many Americans are convinced that they need a big heavy-duty vehicle to lug
stuff around.  Not just the few who really need them - everyone wants that
option in case they ever need to transport anything.  Many American families
also feel that each of them must own a vehicle big enough to transport their
kids' entire soccer teams at once.  This problem is getting worse - when I
was a kid it was fine for a family with three kids to travel in a modest
sedan - now that would be considered way too small."

I can fit my family in the Vgon, get two weeks' worth of groceries and
probably a month's worth of household stuff (like at Walmart or Kmart) in
one run. We combine these trips with other things like the school run and
doctor's appts and such. That saves me gas / money, not to mention time. In
a sedan I'd probably have to make two trips by myself just to get the food
and stuff, nevermind the other things. My family is half a kid larger than
average but I don't think folks like me necessarily number 'in the few'.

Having said that, I don't get SUVs. Haven't seen one yet that really had any
usefull room in it other than a Suburban. Most people we know that have kids
drive minivans or the like. I know one woman that has a late-model 15 seat
GM van, but she actually needs the seats much of the time. That thing gets
better milage than my Vanagon, btw- by about 2 mpg.

> Reducing energy consumption is, IMO, an ethical choice.  It is not always
> the most economical option, especially if you have already got sunk costs
> in
> housing out in a place where you have to drive everywhere (and apparently
> there aren't any school buses) and in inefficient vehicles.

Here's an interesting article on just how 'green' these hybrids really are:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060331/31hybrids.htm

I have 350k on my van. That's probably equal to two lifespans of these
hybrids. I wonder that a properly maintained Vanagon given those conditions
and facts isn't actually the 'cleaner' of the vehicles- added to that, so
many people are converting them to newer more efficient engine technology
and are looking to take them into a third decade.

Like I said, I think for most it comes down to actual cash out of pocket,
but along with that I can live in a place that's cheap, my kids are
relatively safe, it has no pollution (noise, light, smog or otherwise) or
crime to speak of, has a blue sky instead of a brown one and drive a vehicle
I own outright that gets average mileage, or I can pay tons more to live in
some crowded urban hell where our health and peace of mind will suffer and I
have to loom over my kids like a bodyguard 24/7 and make payments on some
boat anchor that I don't like or want and doesn't even come close to doing
what I need it to do.

No contest. When it comes to allocating resources, I'd rather save money and
pay out the nose for the gas.

Cya,
Robert