The Hybrid Math...One Month Later
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
Last month, I wrote about how we decided to go hybrid for our new Honda CR-V. After a month of real-world usage, here are some numbers.
In real-world driving, we’re getting closer to 33 miles per gallon (mpg) than the 40 mpg we got in the early days. Why? As the weather has gotten warmer, we’ve been using the A/C a ton. And we’ve been using the high-performance engine mode, which allows the hybrid to be zippier than the non-hybrid when driving around town.
Even so, the hybrid engine still provides a terrific fuel savings relative to the non-hybrid CR-V we own, which has been getting about 21 mpg as the weather gets warmer. Modeled over a 10-year ownership period, this saves 164 gallons of gas per year ($491 per year at current prices), with a net savings of $2,717 over 10 years.[1]
This also reduces annual carbon emissions by about 1.5 tons per year. And it was comforting during the recent Colonial Pipeline cyberattack to know that we had enough gas for a few weeks if we couldn’t fuel up for a while.
Interested in evaluating whether a hybrid model of your car of choice is worth it? Make a copy of my spreadsheet using this link (if you have a Google account), and change the yellow cells using the non-hybrid and hybrid models of the car you’re looking at. It’s a great way of testing whether going hybrid is good for your wallet, and not just the environment.
And now…Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:
If you’ve tried to order any furniture in the past few months, you’ve probably noticed how long it’s taking to arrive. I really enjoyed this recent interview with the CEO of a major logistics software company (on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast) about how difficult it is to get anything anywhere these days.
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.
[1] If you like to think in terms of return on investment, the implied annual rate of return is 18% over a 10-year period.