Shove Your Hybrid
I know that most of you don’t commute on your bike, but with the price of gas in this country at a constant climb, some of you are thinking about making some serious decisions when it comes to how you get around daily. That’s when you start seeing half-time “green-tinged” commercials for these bars of soap on wheels that get great gas mileage. You now feel the need to save the planet as well as some cash at the pumps and visions of trading your prized two-wheeled possession in for a Prius start to sound pretty good. Well think about this for a second, driving a hybrid car is a pretty much a scam. Don’t believe me? Check the numbers.
A Harley-Davidson 883 Iron gets an estimated 60 mpg on the highway, and MSRP is $7,999.
The brand spanking new Street Glide gets an estimated 54 mpg (HWY), and MSRP is $18,999.
The Hybrid 2011 Toyota Prius gets an estimated 51 mpg on the highway, and costs $29,080.
Let’s say that each vehicle was financed for a 60-month period, which is the most common finance duration. With an APR of seven percent and a paltry 25 percent down, the total cost after the half a decade of payments is; $9,127 for the Iron and $21,679 for the Glide. The Prius will cost you all of $33,182.
Let’s not stop there. Since these things don’t run on god’s own methane, they need a few hundred gallons of fuel per year to keep them running. Filling each vehicle with Premium fuel at $3.89 per gallon at an average mileage of 12,000 miles a year nets 200 gallons/$778 for the Sporty (3.3-gallon tank), 222 gallons/$864 for the Street Glide (6-gallon tank), and 235 gallons/$914 for the Prius (11.9-gallon tank).
So, with my projections of a five-year ownership less maintenance and insurance, an 883 Iron Sporty would cost you $9,905, a Street Glide $ 22,543, and last but not least, a Prius totals $34,096.
Next time your eco-ranger neighbor glares at you from his hybrid cage regarding your loud pipes, you may want to inform him that he’s wasting our earth’s valuable resources and paying too much at the pump keeping that gas guzzler on the road.