The Land of Ozz

I saw an article on Slashdot this morning that got me curious about how much a hybrid would really cost me. I looked into the total cost of ownership (TCO) comparison of a hybrid verses a non-hybrid of the same make and model for my mom about a year ago. I went back today and did the comparison again using the Honda Civic Sedan and Civic non-hybrid. I gathered my data from the Honda Automobiles web site and put it into my own spreadsheet.

The hybrid does not require charging from an outlet because it charges itself when no accelerating and hence does not incur extra cost to charge the batteries. The hybrid also has an expected 10yr battery life. The real choice is whether you want to pony up some of your own coin for the higher initial price tag to help with the world’s reported energy problems. The initial cost of these vehicles when compared against the same non-hybrid make/model/options is significant.

I used the cost savings calculator on the Honda web site to determine how much fuel cost I would save by running the hybrid 1200 miles per month at $2 per gallon. Their calculations show that you would not save enough money in fuel consumption to make up for the higher sticker price. The cost of a hybrid is about 40% higher based on a 5-year ownership and the price of a hybrid Civic is about 30% higher based on 10 years of ownership. These numbers do not include any tax incentives which can make the hybrid a little more attractive, but those incentives do not make a significant difference in the calculations. You can get as much as a $2000 deduction from your taxable income by driving a hybrid. Honda offers more information on this in their FAQs about the hybrid.

I created a spreadsheet of my own to calculate the cost difference. My numbers are within 1% of the numbers on Honda’s site. Here is link to an HTML copy of my spreadsheet. It comes within $50 of the calculations seen on the Honda web site. Keep in mind that they are using the best numbers for the hybrid. (51 mpg Highway)

I believe these vehicles will be a viable option for more of use when the initial cost of the vehicles gets more competitive with non-hybrids of similar models. I plan to buy a hybrid for my next vehicle if the cost comes even close to breaking even over a 10yr period which is how long I plan to use a new car. I will also keep a close eye on new tax benefits and other incentive programs that can help lower the TCO for the vehicle.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 5th, 2005 at 11:30 am and is filed under News, Techie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.