bolson: (Default)
I made a simple spreadsheet showing economy of cars at $3.50/gal, comparing Prius and Insight hybrids and a standard Fit.

You need either a lot of miles or really expensive gas to make the added cost pay for itself.

Of course there may also be other features between these cars. Maybe the high end is also to be nicer for people who want to pay for nice, and the low end is the budget model for people without that cash. There's some test-driving to be done.
bolson: (Default)
I'm getting frustrated with not having a car. There are getting to be 1-2
things a week I would go to except that I don't have one. There are
probably one or two more things that are more trouble than they should be.

I did the math and I guess I should get a ZipCar membership. It's not
intuitive though. For any one event, it seems like a bad deal. If I go for
a social event that's 4-6 hours, I'm paying $8.10/hr to be there. I'd be
worried about the psychological effect of being 'on zipcar time', wanting
to cut out early, or just worrying about the meter running that whole time
and the money ticking away.

The thing is that the rest of the time, when I'm not using the car, the
meter stops. If I own the car, the meter runs all the time. Depreciation,
maintenance, insurance; all of those things are always on. I could spend
$200/mo on zipcar for the next 10 years and still not add up to the base
price of a new car, by which time the car would have almost entirely
depreciated and run up quite some bills in repair and insurance.

So, basically I should just do it, use the zipcars parked a block away as
if my own car (not very much, based on my habits when I did own a car) and
I'll be doing OK.
bolson: (Default)
Today I said goodbye to the first car I owned after 6 years. I drove it to Santa Barbara from my parents house six years ago, and I drove it out of Santa Barbara to Google a week ago.

and this is how I left it (picture) )

I sold it for a bit less than I thought I would get for it, but probably a fair deal, or at least good enough in some way.

My major mode of faster-than-walking trasportation is now a bicycle I'm borrowing. I am now car free. This will last until I get frustrated by not getting to things outside of T coverage in Boston and I break down and buy a Prius. Right now I'll guess that's about a year away, but longer might be good for me. We'll see.

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