Disparity

My commute to work is just about 17 miles one way, that's 34 miles back and forth five days a week for a total of 170 miles a week I commute.

When I drive the Escape it ends up costing about $6 a day to drive to and from work. That's around $30 a week and $120 a month.

Contrast that with the cost of riding the Suzuki to work. The motorcycle gets more than 40 miles a gallon, usually close to 45 or more. So that works out to about $2 a day to get to and from work. That's $10 a week and $40 a month compared to $120 a month in the Escape. Extend that out to a year and its pretty amazing, $480 a year to ride my bike to work or $1440 a year to drive the Escape.

Of course, the reality is that its a mixture of riding and driving in. But I make for damned sure I'm not driving just because I'm lazy. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. The bike is quicker, doesn't get bogged down in traffic jams and is, obviously, alot cheaper to run. But its also substantially more dangerous and its pretty unfun to ride a motorcycle in the rain. The Escape is comfortable, has a great stereo, can haul all kinds of stuff back and forth and doesn't require me to bring everything into my office with me every morning. But its also slow, does get stuck in traffic and is more expensive to run.

Actually, this might be an interesting breakdown. Riding to work costs me $10 a week and takes, on average, about 20 minutes each way to get into the office. That's 200 minutes a week commuting by bike. Or $.20 a minute and also $.06 a mile.

The Escape, by comparison, takes about 40 minutes, on average, to get to or from work. That's 400 minutes a week by $30 a week and that's $.13 a minute and $.18 a mile. So its cheaper timewise but three times the cost milewise.

And there's no way I can measure how much happier it makes me to not have to sit in traffic jams on the way home from work. Or the fact that I can peel off the highway and ride some more fun surface roads home.

I did just read about a new VW Golf that gets 48 mpg on the highway. No hybrid, just a small and effecient powerplant with twin turbos and a supercharger to make the absolute most of what's got. Maybe I should run the numbers and see how long it would take to make the Hybrid Escape a worthwhile purchase.
Tags: commute, mileage, Suzuki, Escape, Highway 1, economizing