We’ve all considered it – the hybrid car that will make us appear more environmentally friendly, save us a ton on gas and save the environment.  Beyond the fuzzy feeling you get helping the environment (as much driving can help the environment), I’ve always questioned the validity of the saving money claim they make from improved gas mileage.

I haven’t sat down to research and write an article on the savings until now though.  For comparison’s sake, I have chosen the 2008 Honda Civic as our steed of choice.  Just to get these two cars optioned as closely to each other as possible, I have selected the top-level EX model for the non-hybrid, which comes in at $19,510 base price.  The hybrid model comes in at $22,600.

We’ll assume that you do half highway driving and half of your driving in the city, which places us at an average of 42.5mpg for the hybrid (40 City/45 Highway), and 35mpg for the EX (30 City / 40 Highway).

At an average of 7.5mpg difference, how long would it take to make up that $3,090 difference in the base price?  If you assume that gas is $3.25 per gallon – it’s at $3.05 at my local station as of this morning, but I know that it’s more in other areas of the country – that’s 950.77 gallons, or  33,277 miles more gas we could buy for the EX.

Now the real question is how far we’d have to drive to break even.  Not considering other factors such as maintenance, we can figure this out using the following:

((x/35) * 3.25) + 19510 = ((x/42.5) * 3.25) +22600

Using this formula, we can see that it would take approximately 188,557 miles just to break even while driving the hybrid.

Total cost for Civic EX:

188,557 miles / 35mpg = 5387.34 gallons of gas

5387.34 gallons * $3.25/gallon = $17,508.85

$19,510 initial price + $17,508.85 = $37,018.85 TCO

 

Total for Civic Hybrid:

188,557 miles / 42.5mpg = 4436.64 gallons of gas

4436.64 gallons * 3.25/gallon = $14,419.08

$22,600 initial price + $14,419.08 = $37,019.08 TCO

Given these figures, even the most frugal of us would be hard-pressed to make the hybrid purchase from a financial standpoint.  As time goes on, though, these cars are coming closer and closer in price to their non-hybrid counterparts.  Whether it’s worth it or not to you is a personal decision!