Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
True, but we're talking about two (or maybe three) different things. Choosing a fuel-efficient car will get you a big chunk of the savings without doing anything else. Likewise, learning to drive efficiently will save maybe 15-20% of fuel cost, whatever car you drive. Neither of those involves making any modifications to the car, thought.
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The way I think about it is; ...how rational is it, rather than, ...is it rational. To my way of thinking there are very few questions that can be answered in the absolute sence. If we start at the begining when we need a new car we pick the most fuel efficiant vehical we can find that meets our needs. In my case it was a Yaris because I live in a small comunity and most of my driving is on the highway. If I did most of my driving in the city I would have bought a Priuse at a price that is 75% more than a Yaris. The next concideration is modifications, and are they economicaly wearth doing? In my case I reasoned that it was, because the benifit is that it would insulates me against future price rises. Return on investment on its own is not sufficiant to justfy the expence of the modification, but if you invest in better FE and the price goes up by a large amount you are insulated/protected from that by the fact that you use so little [about 1/4 of the average] that the doubling of the price of fuel results in the cost/yr being $2000 rather than $8000. If fuel is a dwindeling and harmful/polluting resource then a drastice rise in price at some unknown time in the future is a reasonable/rational expectation...
