According to howstuffworks.com, the United States consumes about 400 million gallons of oil a day across 100 million households, or approximately 4 gallons per household per day. If you drive a 25 MPG car, that’s a hundred miles of driving a day. How does your household stack up? You using more or less than your four?

If we melt Greenland, we can get 50 billion barrels of oil. Actually, it’s already melting and oil companies already have oil exploration licenses to start poking around in Greenland. So, really we need to do nothing differently. Oh, and I heard penguins and polar bears make excellent soups so let’s melt the ice from under them too.

General Motors, as of the recent IRS report, has sold a mere 8,485 hybrid vehicles. By comparison, Toyota crushed the 60,000 limit and Honda just recently exceeded it. Ford is over halfway there. GM is, well, slightly slower out of the gate but remember the tortoise beat the hare.

The Tesla Roadster is a fully electric car made by Tesla Motors. On a single charge, it can travel 220 miles with an efficient of a reported 4.7 mi/kW·h which is the equivalent of 135 MPG. $100,000 is the price of one of the Tesla’s “Signature One Hundred” in all its tricked out glory. Fortune just published an article yesterday about the Tesla.

Have a great weekend everyone!

With gas around, or over depending on where you are, $4.00 a gallon for regular unleaded, are you car pooling more often? Here in Howard County, Maryland, the Park & Ride’s have been feeling the pains of more carpoolers as they rush to expand and meet the increased demand. On the whole, more people are car pooling but, at least amongst my friends, there hasn’t been a significant increase in the number of people sharing rides. Carpooling once a week is the quickest way save 20% on your gasoline bill (wrap your head around that amazing math!).

When I had a commute, I didn’t carpool with my wife. We could’ve, as I was only a minor detour, but we didn’t because of her hours (technically, it’s because of my laziness as you’ll see). Her commute takes about 35 minutes, mine was about 20, but she sometimes had to be in by around 7AM to meet with third shift. That meant she had to get on the road by at least 6:30AM. I wasn’t having any of that. The end of the day was sometimes even more unpredictable, sometimes she would be on the road by 6:00PM or 6:30PM. Sometimes she’d have to stay even later, it was simply too much work time for me… hence my mentioning it was really my laziness.

So, could we have carpooled? Yes, it’s not like we were in two totally different directions. We didn’t because I didn’t want to get up early and stay at the office so late. What’s your take on carpooling? Waste of time? Totally worth it?

(Photo by bitzcelt)

Last weekend, on July 4th no less, my wife and I stopped by our local Toyota dealership and test drove a Prius. Fortunately for us, neither one of us drives a gas guzzler (I drive a 2003 Toyota Celica and my wife drives a 2004 Honda Civic) and neither one of will need a replacement car for quite some time but with a day off and being in the neighborhood running errands, we figured stopping by would be a fun little diversion. Our friends from New York own a Prius, which they love, and we’ve ridden in it before, but never really “test drove,” complete with salesperson pointing out every last feature. Overall, we were impressed and it certainly would be on the short list of vehicles we’d consider if we were to replace either of our cars.

What We Liked

My wife really liked the Prius and here were some of the reasons why:

• The ability to help be a part of the solution to global warming instead of the problem.
• Her commute will be changing to mostly city driving from highway driving. The Prius performs best in city driving conditions, with lots of stop and go, so this would be the optimal time to drive the Prius to take advantage of the 48MPG city fuel economy rating.
• The Prius was surprisingly roomy in the back, with enough room to fit four adults comfortably (maybe five if you have three skinnier friends in the back). This is a big plus over her current 2-door Civic that doesn’t fit any adults comfortably in the back for long drives.
• She was impressed with how quiet it was while idling because the engine shut off.

I liked the heads up display and the statistics it showed. The HUD showed your current fuel efficiency as you drove, 99.9 MPG in times when only the electric motor was engaged, and I was amazed at how low the numbers were in certain conditions. At first, I thought the efficiency was horrible. Then, I realized that I had no reference point. I saw the Prius get 2.5 MPG over a particular hill and thought that was bad, until I realized that I simply didn’t know what my car got (likely 2.5 MPG too, as I drive a 4 cylinder car) in those situations.

What We Didn’t Like

Here’s what my wife didn’t like:

• This isn’t so much a dislike as it is a reason we shouldn’t get one. Her Civic gets ~38MPG, based on empirical data, which would only mean a fuel efficiency boost of around 8 MPG. With 15,000 miles a year @ $4.10/gal, it’s an annual savings of only $281.47. At this point it would take over five years of gas savings to even make up the 6% sales tax on the $25,000 base model car, forget the cost of the car itself. My wife suggests checking out the Fueleconomy.gov’s Side by Side Comparison tool if you’re looking to compare.
• She also wasn’t a fan of the wait, there is roughly a 2-3 month lead time because the factory isn’t able to keep up with demand.

I didn’t like how the numbers couldn’t justify purchasing the car. While I like the idea of helping the environment by reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and I like the idea of helping America get off dependency on foreign oil, the financial figures simply don’t work. If we were driving a 10MPG Hummer, then we’d be talking an annual gas savings of $4813.40 and it starts making sense.

Things To Consider

My wife wanted to add a few additional ideas to help those who are thinking about the Prius:

• What are the new fuel cell car going to be like? Honda already has a hundred fifty ‘08 FCX Clarity vehicles on the road in South California. A zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell is a compelling offer - no oil, no emissions.
• Chevy is pushing up the release of their Ford Chevy Volt (whoops!) to compete with all the other alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles.
• Lastly, Toyota is reported to come out with a new model Prius with better technology… it’s like computers, technology is always improving.
• Given all that information, is it better to just wait for new/cleaner technology, like fuel cell technology? Right now we’d be trading in a Civic, that gets 38 MPG, for a Prius, that gets 46 MPG, which is only a meager fuel savings and that would definitely preclude us from getting newer technology should it come out in the next five years.

After all that, I don’t think we’re getting a Prius but it certainly was fun driving it.

Finally, we leave you with one interesting note. Normally, heat in a car is free because it comes from the heat of the engine and air conditioning costs fuel because the compressor needs power. In the Prius, because the engine doesn’t run as often, you don’t get “free” heat. It actually costs you to turn on the heat! The trade-off then is that AC is “free.”

(Prius photo by MaryMactavish, HUD photo by Andrew Huff)

Before talk of $4 gasoline (and airlines going bankrupt and charging you to check luggage) dominated the nation’s transportation attention, global positioning system units were all the rage. Now it sounds like GPS units have become more of a luxury good, something you only get it if you are hard pressed to spend your stimulus check (perhaps there’s a second stimulus check coming?). However, I argue that GPS units might be a good investment because it makes your driving more efficient (hopefully). Let’s see, shall we?

Fuel Cost Per Mile

If you drive a 30 mile per gallon car, $4 a gallon for gas means that each mile costs you approximately 13.3 cents. If your car only gets 20 miles per gallon, $4 gas equates to 20 cents a mile. This gives you a baseline for comparison, how many miles do you need to save in order to make one of those units “worth it?” We don’t consider other costs per mile, such as car depreciation and maintenance, because that would introduce far too many factors for our simplistic calculation. If you went through the exercise of calculating the cost per mile of your car, use that figure instead of 13.3/20 cents/mile as calculated above.

Breakeven Analysis

If you get the Magellan Maestro 3200 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator for $131 at Amazon, the unit pays for itself if you can save 985 miles (at 30 MPG, 750 miles at 20 MPG) over the lifetime of the unit. If you assume that the lifespan of the unit is a conservative five years, that’s 197 miles a year, or, 1.31% if you drive 15,000 miles year.

Is it really possible to save 197 miles a year? I think that if you do a lot of driving in areas you don’t know very well, it’s very possible. The class of users that I believe benefit the most from GPS units are real estate agents. What about someone who drives the same commute every day five days a week? Chances are you won’t benefit greatly from a GPS on weekdays but you might benefit on the weekend. If your GPS has integrated traffic, which the 3200 doesn’t (I just picked the cheapest unit on Amazon at the time), you could save more by avoiding traffic trouble spots.

Or, for those who are fans of The Office, strict adherence to the units could leave your car in a lake (after the jump).
(read full article…)

A friend of mine just tipped me off on this trick where you can buy gas at Costco without a Costco membership. All you have to do is swipe an American Express card first, when you would normally swipe your membership card, and then swipe it again for payment. Afterwards, it will let you buy the sweet sweet nectar of condensed dinosaur bones at rock bottom prices without the $50/year membership. It’s that simple.

Normally, you have to swipe your Costco Card or the American Express Costco TrueEarnings card in order to authenticate in their gas station systems. It appears that you can simply use any American Express card in the authentication phase because the American Express Costco TrueEarnings card is just an AMEX with a Costco bar code.

I’ve confirmed that this works in Maryland and others have reported success in other states (except those that require an attendant to pump your gas, like New Jersey and Oregon). Locate a Costco nearby (check to make sure it has a Gas Station) and give it a try, Costco gas is usually many cents cheaper than local competitors.

(Photo by shindohd)

With Presidential hopeful Barack Obama mentioning a potential second economic stimulus check, many folks are clamoring to know more. Unfortunately, there’s much else to say about it other than that he’d push for one in the short term.

I, however, offer a different solution. In order to find an additional $600, you only need to cut $50 a month. In reality, that comes out to only $11.54 a week. Reduce your spending by eleven dollars, fifty four cents a week and you will have created your own stimulus check. That’s it. Can you do it? I’m betting that you can and here are some recommendations of what you might want to trim.

Subscriptions

Get a list of all the subscriptions you have and really take a long hard look at what you really use. Do you have a $50/month (or more) gym membership that you don’t use? Do you have a $15/month Netflix membership but have had the same DVDs for the last three months? Do you get a copy of Good Housekeeping every month yet you never do anything except leave it on the coffee table? Trim it.

• Gym memberships,
• Video rentals memberships,
• Magazines,
• Cable television,
• Internet,
• there are plenty more…

Food & Fuel

Food and fuel are the two largest expenses for most families so it makes sense, after trimming that which we can live without, that we turn to these two categories to find further savings. (what doesn’t make sense is why they’re not included in “Core-CPI,” oh wait I remember, it’s so the number seems better! :))

First, let’s tackle food.

Food:

Every Thursday there’s a farmers market within walking distance of my home in which fresh produce is sold at very low prices. I can get yellow squash for $1/lb. versus $1.49/lb. at the local Giant supermarket. That’s a 33% discount and while we don’t eat a ton of yellow squash, savings is savings.

Another recommendation I’ve heard, which I am trying to follow, is to eat more vegetables and less meat. Vegetables are healthier for you and far cheaper. Chicken breast, at it’s very cheapest, was $1.69/lb. and usually $2.99/lb. Beef? Forget it, you’re talking the north side of $4 a pound and sometimes much higher depending on the cut, grade, and whatever sale’s going on. Supplement your meals with more vegetables and some meat, for the various nutrients, but eat more leafy greens than fatty meats.

Lastly, be sure to review the circulars. You can see what’s on sale for the week ahead and plan your menu accordingly. We know that the front page of the Giant Food supermarket circular has the sales so we structure our meals according to what’s on sale. This week we had some shish-kabobs and will prepare some “crumby chicken” (it’s chicken breast coated with breadcrumbs, except it’s Ritz crackers) tonight. Chicken is on sale. (oh, and a leftover calendar helps reduce spoilage… still going strong with nothing going bad yet!)

Fuel:

I’m a huge proponent of car pooling, as it has the potential for the greatest savings. A second best option is to employ some techniques of realistic hypermiling. Don’t tailgate trucks, but consider easing off the gas if you see a red light and not slamming it when it turns green.

Everyone can tell you to car pool or hypermile, how about something no one else has said before? Go to Google Maps and plot out your daily commute. Google will often give you the fastest route but not necessarily the shortest one. What you can do is drag the path and investigate some alternative routes to see if it reduces your total mileage. While there are factors not illustrated on the map (rush hour zones, traffic lights, etc), it will give you an accurate count of the miles traveled. You will have to decide for yourself whether the trade-offs are wroth it.

In my case, I plotted my former commute and was able to reduce the trip from 16.1 miles to 15.5 miles. Qualitatively, the shorter commute had three more traffic lights, took smaller roads, but often missed a stretch of two highways that are usually clogged during rush hour. I felt the two were equal, except one route was shorter by 0.6 miles. 0.6 miles may seem inconsequential but it’s actually worth $40 a year! At $4/gallon gas and a 30MPG car, each mile costs 8 cents. If I make the twice a day for 250 days, the typical work year, then I save $40 by cutting out the 0.6 miles. This, of course, assumes both trips take the same amount of time.

So, plot your trip and any frequent trips you make (such as to the grocery store, doctor, dentist, etc.) to see if you can squeeze any efficiencies out of it.

There you go, some damn good suggestions on how to squeeze an extra stimulus check each year.

(Netflix image by Ross C., Yellow Squash image by tombarta, Expensive Gas by TeeRoe)

Hypermiling is the act of trying to get every last possible ounce of mileage from your tank of gas and it’s been getting a ton of attention lately because of $4+ gasoline prices. The problem with hypermiling isn’t that it’s dangerous, it’s that mainstream media is sensationalizing the more extreme, dangerous and aggressive aspects of it in order to garner attention. They focus on people pushing cars to get momentum before starting the car, they talk about drafting close to large trucks, and they talk about shutting off the engine at seemingly awkward or dangerous times.

But that’s not hypermiling is about.

In fact, calling those tactics as essential or typical does a disservice to the concept. If you visit Hypermiling.com, you’ll see it’s not actually about those fringe tactics. It’s about being aware of your gas consumption, driving skills, and your surroundings so that you don’t waste gas.

Here are a few tips that I try to follow when I’m out driving (these are all in the hypermiling playbook):

• Give yourself 2 seconds between your car and the car ahead of you. If they brake, this means you can coast without hitting the brake. The brake is the enemy when you’re hypermiling because it essentially converts gasoline into heat, not motion.
• If you see a red light or a “stale green,” a long green light that might go yellow, release the gas and coast. I’m a fan of coasting up to red lights hoping they’ll turn green. You can watch other cars for cues as to how long you have to wait (if the oncoming traffic’s turn lane’s are moving, you’re almost there).
• Accelerate slowly from stop. I try to let gravity get me going before I hit the gas, then I press it gently. I’m in no hurry!
• This article on traffic waves is great, I wish everyone read it.

There’s more to the site but I wanted to get back to the more extreme tactics. Those are the tactics that will get you that extra 2-5 MPG. Do you really need a $160 ScanGauge II 3-in-1 Compact Multifunction Vehicle Computer with Customizable Display? Probably not. Drafting behind a semi? Dangerous. The advanced hypermiling tricks are great to get you that extra mile per gallon but are hardly necessary or a staple of the mainstream hypermiling techniques. If you can understand the basics, you will save yourself a lot of gas and be just fine.

Do you have any useful hypermiling ideas not mentioned here or on the site?

Getting a good gas cashback credit card is the easiest way to save on gas, bar none. With gasoline prices increasing every single day, everyone is looking for ways to save on driving. Since you probably can’t sell your car and get one of these highest mileage cars, the next easiest thing is to get a credit card that gives you a little extra cashback on gasoline purchases. At the moment, besides specific gas station branded credit cards, I think the two best options out there is an American Express card and a Discover card.

The best option right now has to be the American Express Blue Cash Card because it offers up to 5% on everyday purchases, including at gas stations, supermarkets, and drugstores. General purchases have the opportunity to earn up to 1.5% cashback. It was named by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance as the “best cash-rebate card” and plenty of people look to it as the best card in their wallet.

Other salient details of the card are that there is no annual fee (I won’t recommend a card with an annual fee unless there is a compelling reason) and they have a 0% introductory APR on purchases for up to 12 months.

A close #2 is the card my wife and I use, the Discover® Open Road(SM) Card. The Discover Open Road card is a consumer card, so you don’t have to play business owner, and it offers 5% cashback on both gas and auto maintenance purchases. Whereas the AMEX card only gave you 5% on gas (and other business-like services), this one includes auto maintenance. Unfortunately, the 5% cashback bonus is only on the first $100 of gas and auto maintenance purchases a month! (Thanks Joe!). This makes the AMEX card a much better card. However, one additional perk of Discover is that you can get anywhere from 5% to 20% cashback bonus when you redeem your cashback in the form of a gift card from one of their retail partners. I used to get double cashback when I sold stuff on eBay because I’d convert my cashback for gift cheques to various stores I frequented. This card also has no annual fee and does offer a promotional 0% APY balance transfer until June 2009. This the card my wife and I currently use for gasoline purchases, but given the new limitation we’ll probably look for another one.

Update: How could I forget the awesomeness that is the Costco TrueEarnings card? If you get the Costco TrueEarnings regular card, you get 3% cashback on already cheap gas prices. You also get 3% back at restaurants and 1% back on everything else. The only downside is that there’s an “annual fee” in the sense that you have to be a Costco member ($50 annual membership).

Beyond that, you have a few cards that give gimmicky 12 month promotional cashback offers or are specific to a particular gas station company. I am never a fan of the limited time promotions unless the offer is especially juicy and I don’t want to be tied to a particular gas station, I like freedom.

What gasoline card do you use?

Higher gas prices suck, but you’re willing to pay them. You’re willing to pay them, much like I’m willing to pay them, because you pretty have no choice but to fund the extravagant palaces of those oil rich families in the Middle East (if you think Exxon is making insane profits, it’s nothing compared to many of the ruling families over there) right? Well, if you’re like me, you’ve probably considered what it would take to surrender the keys to your car and came away with the conclusion that life would be too difficult without your car… but would it?

Mass Transportation

If you live in a major city, mass transit is your best “next alternative” to a car. For people in New York City, with an intricate subway system, this is a no brainer. In fact, very few people who live in NYC have cars because it’s simply not worth it. Why pay for a car, insurance, gas, and parking when you can easily get around the city for a subway token or cab fare? If you need to leave the city, rent a car or go with a ZipCar. If you need to move a lot of stuff, rent a truck or van.

In fact, if you live in a major metropolitan area (the full list of participating cities, surprisingly NYC isn’t on the list), Google Maps can give you a “Take Public Transit” option that includes walking. The next time you do a search between places in a city, look for a “Take Public Transit” link in the Directions section (next to the Drive There option) and it’ll explain exactly how to get there. Pretty useful!

Unfortunately, if you live in the city then you’ve already realized this. If you don’t live in the city, you can’t benefit as much from this. If you live in the city but work outside of it, again you probably can’t benefit significantly from this either. That puts you in the same boat as those people who live in the sprawling suburbs. Is it really possible to give up your car? The answer is yes, if you’re willing to do the work. Transportation comes down to figuring your options and taking advantage of the resources you have available, which oftentimes is time.

Bicycle

If you have a bicycle, you have the second best mode of transportation available to you (the first being your legs). The key here is to take advantage of it by researching how to get to different places using only your bicycle. I knew a guy (Paul G, this is you if you’re out there) who would bike a twenty minute car commute once a week (or more, I can’t remember) for the exercise. This is the same guy that one day came in with a broken thumb because he fell into a big crash at a weekend bike race! He knew all the little detours underneath highways so that he never had to cross a major highway. If you want to bike to work or to the mall or wherever, you need to find yourself a Paul G. either in person or on the internet.

Incidentally, you should never try to cross a highway. If you can’t find a way around, scrap the idea of biking into work entirely. The danger is simply not worth it.

Also, there’s a petition to Google to provide a Bike There feature like the “Take Public Transit” option mentioned earlier. If this is ever made available it would be awesome.

Walk

This option requires a little planning at the buy/rent phase, meaning you need to plan the idea of walking someplace into your decision to buy a home or rent a home/apartment/condo. We lucked out and bought a house that gives us the opportunity to walk to a library, bank, supermarket, liquor store (this is crucial!), neighborhood bar, and some random food places (that we’ve never eaten at).

When you are thinking about buying a place, keep this in mind when you’re surveying the neighborhood. How easy is it to navigate the area on foot? Are there a lot of paths? Are they well lit? While you can’t walk to work, at least you can try to find a place that is within walking distance to a lot of other places you’d frequent.

Other Modes of Transportation

I’m at a loss to think of any other modes of transportation other than by train, bike, or foot… anyone have any clever ideas? Segways are out of the question.

I have a fantastically cheap and proven technique for you to cut your gasoline consumption and bill by 20%. That’s right folks, step right up and hear about how you can cut that bill one one-fifth! It sounds unbelievable but it doesn’t involve buying any gadget that you attach to your car or an additive that you’ll need to put into the fuel, it’s a time tested technique that I can guarantee will cut your gasoline bill by nearly 20%. You won’t even have to buy anything from some late night infomercial… do you know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about carpooling.

Before you run for the door or click to another site, consider this - if you carpool to work just one day a week, you can cut your gasoline consumption by one-fifth. On the day that you’re driving, you’ll probably use up a little more gasoline than your normal commute because you’ll need to pick someone up and the amount of weight your car is carrying has increased, but that’s in the noise… you’re saving tangible money here!

The point is that you don’t need to carpool every. single. day. Just one single solitary day of minor inconvenience. For me, I have class on Monday and Thursday night which means either my prospective carpool compatriots will need to conform to my schedule or I drive myself those days. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are wide open. I could easily carpool on those days as my schedule is more flexible. What about people who need to pick up kids after school around 2 or 3 pm? They just need to find other people at their office that can leave around 2 or 3 pm, or they work out their schedules in other ways. Ultimately, it’s about how much hassle are you willing to take on in order to save money on gas (you can calculate your savings if you know how much each mile costs to drive).

If you find several people at work who are willing to carpool, you leverage your one drive into multiple trips. You pick up two other people and now you’re talking about cutting your bill by 40%. Pick up three, now maybe you’re talking 60% of your gas bill erased in one fell swoop. But for now, try it just one day. One day a week or one day every other week, see how it integrates with your schedule and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Carpool just one day. Just one.