One of my co-workers is currently thinking about getting a new car, so I, along with a couple of other gearheads in the office have been sending suggestions. Now, as an advocate for hybrid cars, I suggested the Prius, and mentioned that I had done some calculations with gas savings and that my own car vs a Prius would have resulted in a savings on the order of several hundred dollars a year.
It seems that since my Celica is quite gas economical, the gas savings isn't much. Putting up the Prius against a SUV (in this case a Dodge Durango), the numbers are quite astonishing. (I'm being generous with the numbers -- the owner of the Durango says that realistically, the MPG is closer to 12).
Prius: 20,000 miles a year @ 55 mpg = 364 gallons.
Durango: 20,000 miles a year @ 15.5 mpg = 1290.3 gallons
(1290.3 - 364) x $3 a gallon: $2778.9
That's a pretty large hunk of change saved. Of course, with a Prius, you might not be doing the things that you would do with a Durango, but $2778.90 a year might be able to cover the rental costs for the times you can't.
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