I have created a beta version of my Petrol vs Diesel Cost Calculator. Its designed for you to work out if its worth swapping to a diesel car depending on the kilometres you travel each year and the relative cost of diesel vs petrol per litre. It will actually work for any fuel as a direct comparison. So you could calculate LPG versus Diesel.
Enter the figures that are in RED and it will tell you how much you will save over the kilometres that you put it. So replace the L/100km with the known figures of your car or the listed l/km of the new car, replace the cost per Litres of the fuel with today’s prices and put in how many kilometres per year that you will use. It will tell you how much you will save over the distance. You can then work out if its worth trading / selling your current car for a diesel one. You could also put in LPG or CNG figures where diesel is. Its the same calculation.
This is a beta table so carefully check the results as I’m not 100% sure I have got it correctly.
If you wish you can also put in your usable fuel tank size to get the range in KM on that tank and the cost of filling up. My car has a 60 Litres tank but I can only use 55L for obvious reasons.
You can then work out what you are going to loose when you sell/trade your car. So if I loose say $4000 going from my current car to a diesel and I’m only saving $500 a year then it will take 8 years to break even. Of course based on the above if I do a lot more kilometres per year I will save more per year.
Of course this does not allow for the lower CO2 emissions of the diesel which is a positive, but also it does not allow of the emissions created and energy used when making your new diesel car. So its up to you to work out what’s best for your personal needs and your personal beliefs in terms of the environment.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:11 am
I have recently started cycling to work. It costs me an additional $5 per day (x5) in food and drink (maximum) and washing pwdr to wash sweaty clothes. I worked out that I cycle over 100 km per week. over 20,000 km I save $1,771 in fuel on the cheaper diesel and $2,363 on the petrol listed here. As I was driving a Subaru Forester which is around 9.7 litres per 100 km the saving is more like $2,600 over 20000km - although thats going to take me 4 years to achieve. The real savings are on the leasing ~$600 per month, servicing ~ $50 per month additional running around in the car I now take public transport or use Emma’s car which is dead cheap that saves me ~ $200 per month in fuel. The insurance was costing about $230 per month - living in Drummoyne - so all up its in the vicinity of $1000 per month.
I live 10 km from work and there are some decent hills - Gladesville bridge - Lane Cove Road and then there are the cycle ways that disappear into nowhere so there are some additional challenges and risks however I have lost about 3kgs in 2 weeks and am burning around 5000 calories per week in just transport related exercise. It might make an interesting consideration for anyone thinking about fitness or cost of living…or both.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Good on you Jon sounds great!!
- fellow biker