Comparing Lifetime Costs and CO2 Emissions for a Few Cars

It can be hard to justify the extra you might have to spend for a hybrid (or other fuel saving technology) when you are buying a car. The hybrid will save you some gasoline costs, but is it really a good investment or not? And, how much are the carbon emissions really reduced?

The table below is a rough go at answering this. For a few cars, it gives the initial price, and then the price of gasoline for the first 100K miles of operation. So, you can compare the total price of the car and the fuel for 100K miles. The table also gives carbon emissions for 100K.

The table is meant to answer these kinds of questions:

How do hybrid and non-hybrid models of the same car compare on total costs, including fuel use for 100K miles?

How does a small, efficient, less expensive, non-hybrid compare to a more efficient but also more expensive hybrid?

How much more expensive in $'s and carbon are large cars?

How do hybrids and non-hybrids compare when you include the fuel costs over the first 100K miles?

What does it really cost be to drive a big honking SUV or pickup in gas and CO2 over 100K miles?

All the numbers in the table are 100,000 miles of operation.

Model	Toyota Prius	Toyota Camry	Toyota Camry	Toyota Corolla	Honda Civic	Honda Civic	Honda Civic	Honda CRV	Ford Fusion	Ford Fusion	Ford Escape AWD	Ford Escape AWD	Ford Expedition AWD	Ford F250 PU	Subaru Outback	VW Jetta TDI
Powerplant type	Hybrid	Hybrid	IC 4 cyl	IC 4 cyl	Hybrid	IC NatGas	IC	IC 4 cyl	Hybrid	IC 4 cyl	Hybrid	IC 4cyl	IC 8 cyl	IC 8 cyl	IC 4 cyl	Diesel
mpg	50	33	25	30	42	28	29	23	39	23	28	21	16	15	22	33
Gallons of gasoline (gal for 100K miles)	2016	2990	4071	3323	2375	3542	3450	4417	2591	4357	3563	4695	6179	6878	4481	3022
Cost of gasoline ($)	6,048	8,971	12,212	9,968	7,125	5,313(2)	10,350	13,250	7,774	13,071	10,690	14,084	18,535	20,633	13442	10,274(1)
Cost of gasoline with 5% infla ($)	7,605	11,276	15,350	12,530	8,956	6,678	13,009	16,655	9,772	16,430	13,437	17,703	23,298	29,935	16896	12,914

CO2 emissions (lbs)	38303	56814	77343	63132	45125	67292	65550	83917	49238	82786	67701	89200	117393	130679	85135	57409

MSRP ($)(3)	22,160	26,910	21,205	17,010	24,550	26,090	17,005	23,575	28,675	20,420	33,095	24,705	39,410	30,225	28690	21,900

MSRP+Gas ($)	28,202	35,881	33,417	26,978	31,675	31,403	27,355	36,825	36,449	33,521	43,785	38,789	57,945	50,858	42132	32,174
MSRP +Gas 5% infla ($)	29,765	38,186	36,555	29,540	33,506	32,768	30,014	40,250	38,447	36,850	46,532	45,408	62,708	60,160	45586	34,814
Increase from Prius	base	1.28	1.23	-0.01	1.13	1.1	1.01	1.35	1.29	1.24	1.56	1.53	2.11	2.02	1.53	1.17

Some thoughts:

If you look at situations where a manufacturer offers a comparable hybrid and non-hybrid model (eg Ford Fusion, Toyota Camry,...), then it looks like the hybrids do not in general quite earn back the initial price premium over the first 10 years -- but, they come close. And, their CO2 emissions are many tons less than their non-hybrid equivalents.

Increases in fuel prices over then next 10 years could easily make the hybrid models both a less polluting and a less expensive option.

If you drive a big honking SUV or truck, then savings both in dollars and CO2 can be very large indeed -- about $30,000 over 10 years! Families that end up driving around in a full size SUV or pickup when a Prius (or other efficient car) would do the job 95% of the time might want to look at the $30,000 saving over 10 years, and just rent or borrow when a large vehicle is needed? The additional benefit would be close to 50 tons less of CO2 emissions over 10 years!
Or, if you have multiple vehicles, make one of them a high efficiency vehicle, and drive it whenever possible.

This is our experience in this area...

The numbers for the table all came from two places:

The gas/pollution calculator at HybridCars. com (gas use, CO2 emissions, mpg, ...)

The Kelly Blue Book site (MSRP's)

You can easily add cars of interest to you using these to sources.

Notes:

Some of the hybrid models come with options not on the comparable standard model -- this runs the MSRP up.
If the MSRPs were at the same trim/option level between hybrids and non-hybrids, the hybrid numbers would likely improve.

(1) used a 40 cent premium for diesel fuel ($3.40 per gallon).

(2) using an equivalent NG price of $1.50 per gallon.

(3) mostly the MSRP's are the lowest for an automatic transmission model -- this tends to be unfair to hybrids in some cases as the base model includes more stuff than the non-hybrid base model.

Gas cost was done a $3 per gallons for gasoline cars.
The fuel cost with 5% inflation per year puts gasoline prices at $3.77 at the end of 10 years -- my guess is it will really be much higher -- probably a good thing.

The Honda Civic NG model: some may not be familiar with the natural gas powered model of the Honda Civic. Its a very interesting car that has low pollution levels and uses low cost NG for fuel. It is only available in some areas of the US.
I figured the equivalent cost of NG at $1.5 per gallon -- -- this works out to a bit less than $1 per therm of NG.
I don't know a lot about it, and may be missing something -- please let me know.

I included the VW diesel Jetta as the most common diesel in the US. In this one case, I factored in the extra cost of diesel (+40 cents a gallon) that seems prevalent in around here. Note also that the CO2 emissions are higher than a gas car burning the same number of gallons -- this is because diesel fuel has more energy content and more carbon per gallon that gasoline.

Gary September 3, 2010

Update Sep 6, fixed error on CRV MSRP + gas (thanks to Mark for finding this!)