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An Experiment

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

An Experiment

So...we own two vehicles. Dave drives the Toyota Prius to/from work (20 miles per day), while I take the boys around in a Honda Odyssey (more than 20 miles per day, usually closer to 50).

Don's blog now has an RSS feeder streaming his favorite news articles related to Electric (EV) and Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV) vehicles. I also noticed our local Citgo station's unleaded gas (corner of Penny and Ten Ten Rds.) is going for $3.29/gallon (look here and scroll down to the list of most expensive gas...and YES PAUL, that's Costco with the cheapest gas in the area!).

It got me thinking: how much gas (read: how much money) could we save if we tried to live with one car for a while...just the Prius?

Right now we average 1 tank of gas per week for the Prius (about $28), and 1.5 tanks of gas per week for the van (about $75). I wonder if we could do everything in a week on 2 gallons in the Prius?

Could we save ($28+75) - ($28+$28) = $47 per week? $200 per month? $2400 per year?

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posted by The Vollmers @ 9:42 PM   7 Comments

7 Comments:

At Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 11:42:00 PM CDT , Blogger Don Miller said...

MM,
Maybe trade in the Minivan and have Dave get one of these. Exercise and save gas.

 
At Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 7:02:00 AM CDT , Blogger The Vollmers said...

Dave can probably bike to work when we get to Omaha this summer. We won't be living more than about 5 miles away. But traffic here is such a nightmare, Dave is afraid to ride his bike.

This article caught my attention: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/reported-us-sal.html

 
At Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 7:04:00 AM CDT , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Holy cannoli!!! That's a lot of gas for the van everyweek.

I try not to leave Hillsborough unless I absolutely have to. The only reason I go to Chapel Hill/Carrboro anymore is for the health food store. Thankfully, there is a branch of the Carrboro co-op opening here in May (Weaver St Market).

I drive about 60 miles a week to work (total) and another 30-50 doing errands, shopping, etc. The libary is only about 3 miles away, lots of parks within 3-5 miles of the house. Kapila's soccer in the fall is about 8 miles away. I'm so glad the kids take the bus to school-otherwise we'd be talking another 50 miles a week. So, I fill up the Volvo about every 10 days or so for about $35-40.

Good luck with your experiment! You can do it!

 
At Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 7:24:00 PM CDT , Blogger Susie PSU said...

Wow, those ant farms are COOL! I can't wait to see the tunnel. And let us know about the one car and the gas. Great experiment!

 
At Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 1:51:00 PM CDT , Blogger Paul said...

We've done the ant farm thing and will again, but this spring we're going to try the visible root growing thing, for carrots, radishes, etc.

And to offset your eco-friendly ways I bought a new truck. Did I tell you this? Mileage-wise it's probably no worse than the minivan I traded in on the highway but around town it's a different story. At least we won't get stuck in the snow again when we go skiing, and we can take all the bikes when we go camping.

 
At Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 2:03:00 PM CDT , Blogger Paul said...

While looking for the root farm thing I came across this. Now that's cool...they eat their way through the habitat. We ended up with moldy bits of food before...this would avoid it. And when your ants are dead and gone you can buy a resin to pour in it and make a sculpture out of it. I wonder if my boss would be upset if I brought it into work...

 
At Friday, March 14, 2008 at 10:20:00 PM CDT , Blogger The Vollmers said...

You boss might notice a drop on productivity when you're spending all day staring at your ant farm...it's SO ADDICTIVE!

 

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