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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   26552 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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You'll hear people talk about buying a brand new hybrid or electric car to "save on gas," even though there's no way the gas savings could ever add up to the cost of the new car.

My dad actually did that once: compared the cost of gas with his SUV vs. the cost of gas+payments on a hybrid. Came out in favour of the latter. Granted, that was largely due to him having a sizeable commute at the time, and your point probably does hold true for most people.

That must be a really long commute on a very gas-intensive car, if the cost of payments on a new car still made the hybrid a savings. Could be possible for some people, but yeah in general it doesn't work out.

I recall it being over an hour (not counting traffic), and the other vehicle option was a Mercury Mountaineer. Call it 15-20 MPG?

It depends on the car (the difference in price used to be much greater than it is now) and the location of the commute (pure-ICE mileage has gotten pretty good outside of stop-and-go driving) and on the future of gas prices too. My daughter picked out a hybrid for environmentalist reasons but I was surprised to see (even pre-bombing-Iran) that, if gas prices don't drop, the break-even point would be under 50k miles in. That would actually have been a reasonable investment if not for the opportunity cost vs the stock market going wild during the past few years.

On the other hand, I have a friend with a hybrid who made the same calculation during a gas price peak pre-fracking. Gas prices did drop. For a long time.

There's also auto work to consider. On average hybrids now are a little cheaper to maintain thanks to less engine and brake wear, but more expensive repairs means that one bad accident or post-warranty breakdown could put her back in the red there.

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