Sure, switching from a gas guzzler to a highly efficient (and probably much smaller) car is best for the environment, but it’s not a realistic solution for large families or people who can’t afford it. But don’t let the fact that you can’t buy a 40 mpg car turn you off of a trade up in efficiency anyway. A couple of economists have pointed out that “using ‘miles per gallon’ as a measure of fuel efficiency leads people to undervalue the benefits of replacing the most inefficient automobiles.” Their point: if you’re driving a gas guzzler, even a small improvement in fuel efficiency can generate significant savings.
Gillis calculated that at $4 a gallon, over 10,000 miles, an improvement from 12 mpg to 13 mpg would save $256. For the owner of a 33 mpg car to save that much, mileage would have to go up to 40 mpg, he said.
Here’s how it works.
A couple drives a 25 mpg sedan. They trade it for a 50 mpg hybrid, a 25 mpg improvement.
A family with mom, dad and three kids has a 10 mpg SUV to haul everyone around. They trade it for a 20 mpg station wagon, a 10 mpg improvement.
Sounds like the couple did better, at least in miles per gallon.
But lets look at gallons per miles.
At 25 mpg the couple burned 400 gallons over a year and their new 50 mpg hybrid cuts that to 200 gallons. They save 200 gallons.
At 10 mpg the family’s SUV burns 1,000 gallons of gas a year. At 20 mpg the station wagon burns 500 gallons — they save 500 gallons, much better than the couple.
Obviously you stand to save the most with the most efficient car. In the above example, though, you’re spending so much on gas for that big vehicle that cutting your consumption in half can save you $2,000 a year. It’s worth keeping this in mind if you’ve been assuming it’s cheaper to stick with your old 10 mpg vehicle, or if you’re car shopping on a limited budget and tempted to disregard modest fuel efficiency ratings.
“Seeking better gas mileage? Think backwards” [CNN]
“The MPG Illusion” (subscribers only) [Science]
(Photo: Getty)
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@B: I’m just sayin’ that a SUV full of people is equivalent to “one” driver in a hybrid.
It would take a greyhound bus full of people to cancel out the smug generated by five people in a hybrid.
I’m going to be the annoying guy who points out that my bicycle gets 0 gallons per mile or ∞ miles per gallon
This is still America. People are free to drive what they can afford to drive.
Th point I’m trying to make is that a SUV owner who regularly keeps the seats full has no reason to hang his head in front of his hybrid owning friends. Especially if the the SUV owner can not afford a more efficient vehicle. Each are doing the right thing.
Another point I think I clearly made is that I can’t type for squat.
I see the larger point here — if you drive a gas guzzler and don’t want to switch to a Toyota Echo, don’t despair.
But the nutty thing about this equation is that no one is going to go out and get a car with terrible gas consumption just so they can really stick it to those Prius owners next door.
If you’ve had good gas mileage for years with your (ahem) Honda Civic, you’ve already banked THOUSANDS of dollars that haven’t gone into your Land Barge ™. So if you do switch to a Prius, maybe you don’t see the kind of OMG, let’s buy a pony! jackpot that the downsizing Land Barge owners would see.
On the other hand, all that spent gas money isn’t on your credit card racking up interest charges, or drained out of your home equity line, or keeping you from affording health insurance or…
@dondiego87: nice examples. the family is saving the most money, but the couple is still spending the least. I’ve seen this same line of math used to explain why it actually makes more sense to use hybrid technology to improve mileage of big cars than to improve mileage of little cars which already get better mileage to start with.
Lets stop throwing in the confusing math equations here. 25 mpg = 25 bloody mpg. Which is really not that good, considering that there are cars from the 70′s which got over 40 mpg. (Honda Civic being the one I’ve heard most about)
I think the braniacs over at CNN decided to pick up Dan Ariely’s book and then decided to APPLY the knowledge from said book to maybe help some people out!
@sleze69: Yep. I went from a ~14 MPG gas truck to a ~24 MPG diesel Benz, and my cost went from ~$0.25/mi to ~$0.20/mi.
Add biodiesel into that equation and the numbers get prettier.
The problem with the article isn’t the thesis, but the execution – it treats the family who “saves more” as the winner, as opposed to the family who “spends less.”
First, I never knew it was a contest. Second, it’s like pointing out that a fat guy who went from 300 lbs to 250 “lost more weight” than the guy who went from 185 to 165, and calling the second guy’s weight loss “an illusion.” Yeah, it’s literally true, but it’s ultimately confusing (if not misleading).
@PunditGuy: after two kids, it gets harder to fit in a regular car. By after two kids I mean…three or four, especially four. and depending on age you have car seats that take up more space than asses would.
@D.B. Cooper-Nichol:
There isn’t a winner. The point is the family would be less inclined to make the change then the couple, even though they would benefit more.
@Geekybiker:
MPG Cost/Gallon
1 $4.00
5 $0.80
10 $0.40
15 $0.27
20 $0.20
25 $0.16
30 $0.13
35 $0.11
40 $0.10
45 $0.09
50 $0.08
55 $0.07
60 $0.07
65 $0.06
70 $0.06
75 $0.05
80 $0.05
85 $0.05
90 $0.04
95 $0.04
100 $0.04
105 $0.04
Easy to see here how there are diminishing returns.
@battra92: A minivan might be more suitable, or if there is a problem with roof height, a full sized van with even more room then a truck chassis type station wagon.
Dang, this article has some funky math.. wonder where this news release originated.. GM perhaps?
If you’re smart and look at things from an environmental and overall cost perspective, 200 gallons<500 gallons. Cheaper, and better for the world.
@D.B. Cooper-Nichol: The family who does the most to save the environment the winner. For me, that means I’m willing to pay extra to use less energy.
I understand that some people need to be hit where it hurts (the pocketbook) to get them to change. But It’s not like saving the world is free. It makes perfect sense for something with greater efficiency to cost more up front and quite possibly not even save money in the long run.
@Corydon: I’m going to be the annoying guy who points out that my bicycle gets 0 gallons per mile or ∞ miles per gallon
Nah, you can calculate the number of calories you burn while riding and convert that to an equivalent amount of gasoline. A quick calculation says I get about 3500 miles per gallon when riding at 13 mph. Still pretty good.
@Michael Belisle and Corydon: But what kind of food do you eat to get ~30,000 calories for only $4.00? Given the cost of human fuel, it’s hard to justify a switch from car to bicycle on purely financial terms.
Re: the post, can I hope this kind of logic creates a market to sell the horrible, horrible Chevy Impala my husband opted for a couple of years ago to a truck/SUV driver who’s not ready to do the Prius/Civic/Echo thing quite yet? Nah, probably not.
Really?? You mean SPENDING more money doesn’t save you money??? Hmm… thats a basic concept only Americans can’t seem to figure out.
Only Americans would think its good math to walk around with credit cards, statistically spending 20% more than those without credit cards, because they get 1% back from Visa!! (for you retards out there, thats a LOSS of 19%)
@whinypurist: Mostly irrelevant. That only matters if you’re minimizing your exertion to save money. If you’re exercising anyway, the point is moot from a purely financial standpoint. Even so, we can learn some things by exploring the line of thinking.
Biking uses 35 calories / mile. My car uses 1,250,000 cal / mile. Emissions for the bike? Nearly zero. The winner for the environment is clear.
The financial savings are not great: A $4 box of granola bars is good for 30 miles of biking. So, right now, it’s about the same as my Honda Accord on a highway.
And the cost brings us back to my first post here: I’m willing to pay more to save energy. Here, I pay about the same amount per mile, but the car uses around 35,000 times more energy. That should be an easy choice.
@Rusted: It depends. My dad bought it back in 2001 and junked it last year. Gas was relatively cheap back then so he didn’t complain too much about it.
When he junked it he got 15mpg and now gets 20 on his Tacoma. I showed him MajorXP’s chart and he somewhat gets the point but still grumbles.
He hates station wagons so that was never an option.
Vans are also a PIA and still guzzle gas.
@Michael Belisle: After thinking about the math (using 1000 mpg for person bicycling) it actually could make sense financially for someone using a car with lower MPG or subsisting on relatively inexpensive, high-calorie food (i.e. your granola bars) to switch over to logging bike miles.
But, in fact, I am one of those folks for whom the trade-off with human fuel is relevant, which is why I brought it up. This spring I contemplated switching over to biking to do my limited weekly driving (so my V6-owning husband could use our civic for his commute). But with a toddler always in tow, and trouble meeting my daily calorie needs already (plus the cost of the gear) – I decided it was a bad idea. I just can’t add enough food into my day to compare with what I get from my car.
More recently I’ve been contemplating just switching cars with him – so don’t judge me for my V6 – I’ll be making a huge sacrifice!
i love this “large families” thing. most american families have one or two children. if you can’t fit 3-4 people in a midsized sedan, you just fail at life or need to diet. i drive a honda civic and many many times it has fit 3-4 adults and a baby seat, plus stroller and baby supplies in the trunk and a full week’s worth of groceries.
what a bullshit excuse. just because you WANT the half ton towing capacity 4wd v8 suburban with the DVD player to take your ONE child to elementary school (1 mile down the road) doesn’t mean it’s actually difficult to downsize to, say, a honda accord.
@Coder4Life: It’s not crap, they are making a comparison against the two families, not against what each family previously spent. The point is more of, if you have two cars like a decently efficient sedan that gets 30MPG and a not as efficient station wagon that gets 20MPG and are going to replace one with a new car, which one would you replace all other things being equal – the 30 MPG sedan for a 40MPG sedan or the 20 MPG station wagon for a 25 MPG station wagon? A lot of people would say replace the sedan since it has the greatest increase in MPG. But in reality, upgrading the station wagon is a better choice.
@katylostherart: I find it funny too. We did grow up with a mini van as a second car, but we still had plenty of times when we’d all get crammed into the mercury tracer without much of a problem. The van was really only fully useful for moving stuff occasionally and vacations. Other than that, we’d fit into the smaller cars just fine.
The name of the game is to use as little fuel as possible. Comparing “before and after” mpg as a percentage is a fairly futile exercise.
Just calculate the cost of transporting the tribe from A to B, factor in the increased cost of the more fuel-efficient car and the assumed future cost of fuel, look at its depreciation rate, amortise it over x years.
Easy as that.
Oh yeah, and reduce your fuel consumption by driving sensibly.
I’m up to 40mpg (from 26mpg) by setting the cruise control to 65mph instead of 75mph, this on a Saab 9.3 Turbo on European motorways.
And if I was to really let rip I’d be somewhere under 20mpg…
I’ve started driving slower, and a tank of gas is lasting me longer. Yes, I’ve become the putt-putt driver going 65-70 on the freeway. At least I keep to the right lane most of the time.
This is an awesome post, because I just bought a new car with fuel economy (among other things) in mind. I had a 2000 Grand Prix GT that got about 16mpg in-town. However, what I wanted more than fuel economy was capacity to carry stuff after going to the hardware store, IKEA, etc. I looked at the Honda Fit, which has decent cargo room and gets about 30mpg.
However, given that I rarely drive anymore (I take the bus to work now), I did the math and figured out that it would literally take years to recoup the $6500 price difference between the Fit and the car I ended up buying (a 2005 Hyundai Tucson GL). It was worth it to me to save the money, get slightly worse fuel economy, and still get what I wanted out of my car – a warranty and cargo capacity.
@Chris Walters: You nailed it.
You either have two choices for saving money on fuel:
1) Drive less altogether
2) DON’T drive less, but drive the same distance using LESS fuel
Number two is easier said than done if you actually use haul family and stuff in a large car or SUV, or you use your own wheels as a delivery vehicle. A modest improvement in MPG (combined with driving conservatively, like you should be doing anyway) means that you don’t have to sacrifice much space or utility.
@jstonemo: Understanding the your point about REAL costs of a newer fuel-efficient vehicle–it’s moot because we’re talking about the GALLONS PER MILE figure and not any other hidden costs.
The hidden $3000 you have in savings to afford a scooter or low-end motorcycle is just as meaningless as your new $400 per month car payment. MPG figures don’t take financing into consideration, so you shouldn’t insist upon it when talking about GPM.