(Cross-posted at MY LEFT WING, ePluribus Media and my blog)This is what I drive:
I love my car - truly love it. And I'm getting ready to trade it in.
Make the jump.
What you see above the fold is not my actual personal car but one that fundamentally looks like it. It's 2003 Nissan Murano. It has 6-cylinders, 18" rims, it's all leather inside, it has a 10-speaker sound system and a totally responsive drive for someone who drives like me - fast. When I hit the gas at a red light I am out in front of everyone else faster than you can blink. When I need to hit the gas on the highway to get around some problem I need only step on the accelerator and it takes off like a shot.
I had mentioned once about a year ago that I drive an SUV. I mentioned it off-handedly in a comment to another diary loosely related to the subject. I took a lot of guff for that. Those who disapprove of my choice of an SUV were on me like white on rice. The undertone of disappointment from those who had always otherwise liked me was palpable.
Let me back up a step and explain something to you. I live in the Washington DC suburbs. I work the kind of job that makes public transportation and Metro completely out of the question (although I do take Metro when I have to go into downtown DC and don't have any additional meetings after the downtown meeting) - I'm all over the place at client and prospect sites all the time. Washington DC is second only to Los Angeles in traffic congestion and average commute time. Suffice it to say, I spend a LOT of time in my car. I would invest in a car that I loved and found comfortable more readily than I would in my own home. You might think my priorities are tilted, but you'd have to come live my life for a month and go where I have to go as often as I have to go there before you'd be able to credibly criticize. I love the fact that my SUV is high. I love the big wheels. I love the all-wheel drive and how it gets me around when it snows. I love the look of the car.
Now let me show you what I'm about to purchase:
It's a 2006 Prius. If I were to tell you that I was excited about this change, I'd be lying. Badly lying.
Let's go back to the Murano for a moment. I track my gas mileage religiously. On the highway, the Murano gets about 23mpg if I'm lucky. In city driving, it gets 16mpg. I'm feeling pretty ahead of the game relative to the Murano if I get between 17 and 18mpg in mixed driving. It takes only 93 octane gas (I've tried the medium grade - it caused backfires - I guess they recommend premium for a reason). I've had the Murano three years and I have 53,220 miles on it. That means that I'm driving roughly 1,500 miles per month. That sounds about right.
The Murano, when totally empty, takes 18 gallons of gas. In mixed driving (which is pretty much all of my driving), I get about 300 miles to those 18 gallons. If I find a good gas price locally, I get my gas for $3.35 per gallon today. So doing the math: that's 5 fill-ups a month at slightly over $60 per pop for a total of $300 per month in gas. Moreover, that's 90 gallons per month of gas just for me. Truthfully, I've been spending about $330 a month on gas, but I wanted to go with my best case scenario with the Murano ($300/month) and compare it to my worst-case scenario with the Prius.
The advertised gas mileage for the Prius is 51 on the highway and 60 in the city. Now, all of the internet discussion threads indicate that it doesn't get anywhere near that. For example, because it's a hybrid engine, if you run the air conditioning especially cold and/or use the radio and other battery-consuming things more than the "average" driver, your engine has to switch over to gas to recharge the battery. I've spoken with Prius owners, though, and it seems like a range of 45mpg to 53mpg in mixed driving with what I would consider "normal" use.
So we're back to my 1,500/month example. Let's split the difference and say I can expect about 49mpg average with the Prius... With a 10-gallon tank, then, I can expect to go about 490 miles. The Prius takes regular gas as well, which is coming in at about $3.05 here locally. The cost to fill up, then, would be about $30.50 and I'd get an extra 190 miles for a tank slightly more than half the size of my Murano's. So for the same 1,500 miles I drive today at a cost of $300/month I can do it for about $93 per month with a Prius.
The Gods are screaming at me.
I went and test-drove the Prius about a week ago - it's... nice, I guess. It's much smaller than my SUV and it doesn't have the "finishing touches" that the SUV has. I called my credit union and got an estimate of the rate to finance the car, as well as what I owe on the Murano. I also priced what I can expect on trade cash-wise and I worked out all the math. It looks like I can get a fully loaded Prius for the same payment I have on my Murano, even with the difference in interest rates between the two loans. Moreover, I can save $207 a month in gas.
That's not why I'll do it, though. I am fortunate enough that I can afford that extra money every month, as it stands today. I could even afford more than that.
But reading here on Daily Kos and elsewhere in the blogosphere about oil dependence and what have you has really hit me hard. While the profits the oil companies make is obscene and the whole industry is completely out of hand and in need of some serious legislation, none of that addresses the real problem. Pick up any newspaper and they'll tell you what the real problem is: it's that demand hasn't slacked off despite the higher prices.
90 gallons a month is my demand today. But it could be 31 gallons a month. My personal demand will literally drop by two-thirds. That's nothing to sneeze at.
Now - and PLEASE don't lecture me because this is just an honest statement - it's really going to hurt giving up that Murano. I realize there are bigger problems that people deal with each day, but my love for that car is genuine. I love how it feels and how it rides and, as a result, I'm totally unexcited about the Prius.
I dragged Mr. RenaRF with me back to the dealership today so that he could drive it and ride in it with me. The first thing I noticed was that he doesn't fit very comfortably in the car (he's very tall). When I brought that up to him, though, he said "I have to make sacrifices, too."
I've sacrificed some things for my principles. But truthfully, these are all sacrifices I really wanted to make. I gave up meat and certain kinds of fish for environmental reasons alone. I started shopping organic and buying blue on principle. I volunteer my time and give my money to candidates and causes in which I believe. But none of that really hurt, you know? This car thing is going to hurt and I can feel it already - I'll cry when I trade it in.
Some of you may find that ridiculous, but it's true.
We went and saw An Inconvenient Truth on Sunday. It is no longer acceptable for me to claim environmental sensitivity and the moral high ground while driving that SUV. I. Just. Can't. Do. It. It is really the last big thing in my life that flies in the face of my principles and my rap.
So with a heavy heart and tears lurking, I'll be putting my money where my (big) mouth is before two weeks is up.
Cheers all - I can at least be happy to say that I, personally, will be contributing to the solution rather than exacerbating the problem.