Drive a Hybrid Car and Reduce Fuel Costs

With gas prices tipping over $4 a gallon and continuing to rise, more consumers are looking to hybrid cars for a near term solution to the increasing cost of getting from A to B. The old excuses of hybrid cars being “too expensive” and the idea that the hybrid premium was a deterrent, simply no longer apply.

It is now possible to recoup the 2k to 3k hybrid premium in a shorter timescale than was previously possible. For instance at $3 a gallon one could expect to get around 20 miles down the road. Now, to travel the same distance costs $4. Calculating that a motorist will do an average of 50 miles a day he or she will now pay $10 a day for gas, as against $7.50 when it was $3 a gallon.

Multiplied by a year that amounts to around $2,700, on fuel costs at $3 a gallon. However that is now costing $3,600 at today’s $4 a gallon. In other words every $1 increase in a gallon of gas costs the average consumer an extra $900 a year in fuel costs alone.

If the same motorist was to drive a hybrid car (e.g A Prius), and average 40 mpg (more is possible) they are now paying $5 a day for gas. Their annual fuel cost’s now adds up to around $1,800, an approximate saving of $1,800. If the hybrid premium is around $2,000, net of tax breaks, then we are now looking at around a year to recoup the added investment for the hybrid car. Add in savings on parking, (some areas are free parking for hybrids), lower road taxes, tolls and insurance costs, and it is feasible to recoup the premium in less than a year.

Add in the expected continued rise in gas prices and it would be possible to recoup the hybrid premium in considerably less than a year.

With more hybrids becoming available, and with gas prices likely to continue rising, watch those hybrids fly off the car lot.

Hybridcar.com

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