At the rist of completely boring everyone with more talk of my Volt, here’s a cost comparison I have worked out with my previous car (Acura MDX) and the prototypical gas miser, the Toyota Prius.
Comparing the cost to drive my Volt (at 2.5 cents/mile) and the MDX (25 cents/mile), I have saved $360 this month driving 1600 miles. At this rate, I would save $4320 in a year. Compared to a Prius, at about 45 MPG on regular at about $3.75, I have saved about $93 for the month.
But I’ve been driving 40 miles to see Mom in the hospital almost every day. Past history shows I actually drive on average about 1000 miles/month. In addition, summer electric rates are higher, increasing my costs in the Volt to about 3.9 cents/mile. Averaged over a year, it comes to about 3.3 cents/mile.
Here are tables showing the savings this month, and then in a typical month.
| Price of Energy | Miles/Month | Cost/Month | Cost/Year | |
| Volt | $.025/mile | 1600 | $40 | $480 |
| MDX | $4.00/Gal | 1600 | $400 | $4,800 |
| Prius | $3.75/Gal | 1600 | $133 | $1,600 |
| Price of Energy | Miles/Month | Cost/Month | Cost/Year | |
| Volt | $.033/mile | 1000 | $32 | $390 |
| MDX | $4.00/Gal | 1000 | $250 | $3,000 |
| Prius | $3.75/Gal | 1000 | $83 | $1,000 |
2 responses so far ↓
1 Don // May 8, 2012 at 6:40 pm
What’s the difference in the Price of Energy between the Prius and Volt? It is because the Prius uses a lot of gas in it’s normal driving? I would think the MDX would be a lot higher than the Prius.
2 Daryl // May 8, 2012 at 9:49 pm
The Prius uses regular, which is selling for around $3.75/gallon, while the MDX used premium at about $4.00.
Mileage is reflected in the Cost/Month and Cost/Year (45 MPG for Prius, 16 for MDX).