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Friday, September 18, 2009

Something To Think About...

I didn't double check the numbers so have no idea how accurate this is, but I got it in an email today:

A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline.
A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320
gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons / year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's US consumption.
And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $ 375 million dollars at $75/bbl.
So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $ 375 million.

How good a deal was that ???

4 comments:

Charles said...

But if driven for 10 years that is 3.75 Billion in savings!

KMPO Staff said...

Yeah, I guess you got a point there. But this is America, where we want instant gratification and instant big savings! Which is one of our main problems...

Terry said...

Sounds like "Fox math" to me.

--Why use the per barrel price of oil and not the retail price of gas?
--Why 12k miles per year?
--Is 15 mpg to 25 mpg really the "average" clunker transaction?

If it were me, in addition to annualizing the savings over an estimated lifetime of the new car, I'd also add auction cost of tons of carbon emissions saved and the jobs not lost and other stimulus benefits that were the main focus of the program.

KMPO Staff said...

Good idea Terry. Time to get out the calculator...