Originally Posted by alienator .
That's only a financial investment. I know a lot of folks who, like me, invested a lot of money racing motorcycles. The investment was in the experience, not in some future profit, save for the profit from having a lot of fun. A true investment is not necessarily a financial investment since the definition of investment is not necessarily a financial definition.
For a significant number of folks, investment in a more fuel efficient car is worthwhile investment. Likewise, some value the investment in a car that has very low emissions.
I'm not disagreeing with Alien being, I fully understand what you're saying...WOW, I must be taking drugs!! Anywho, you raced motorcycles and I use to race cars, I no longer race cars because I was spending way too much money with nothing in return for it...this obviously wasn't pro level racing or otherwise I would have became a millionaire doing that, you might be a pro rider and thus it's been a great profitable occupation for you thus a good investment. The experience was fun, but was it worth the money looking back on it? NO!! I wasted a lot of money that could have been used to get me along a lot further in life. So the experience was fun but it wasn't a worthwhile investment.
Is spending $30,000 dollars on a car that gets 50mpg worth buying vs a car that gets 18mpg that cost $5,000? No. You will never recoup the cost of the new $30k from the difference in fuel savings. So lets assume you average 12,000 miles a year and buy a 30k hybrid and you average 50mpg, thus in the first year you spent $960 in fuel. And I buy a 5k older car that gets 18mpg thus I spend $2660 in fuel. That's a difference of 1,708 a year in fuel that I spend more then you. We both keep our cars for 10 years. You spend $9,600 and I spend $26,680 in fuel in 10 years. You could argue that I spent as much in fuel as the new car cost, but I didn't because you have to add the 30k to your fuel costing you almost 40k, whereas my end cost is almost 32k I'm still ahead. But wait it doesn't end there, because now at the end of 10 years we decide to sell our cars, you sell yours for 5k and I sell mine for 1k (assuming no classic value), so now you lost 25k in depreciation and I lost 4k so now the end cost for your car is 65k, mine is 33k so your loss is at 32k. But your lost doesn't end there, because most people buy new cars with loans thus interest is charged so that amount could be 0 if the program exist for that car, on up depending on credit rating of the individual buying the car, but I'll leave that out of the equation due to too many variables so for our sake's it's just 0. So in the long run my gas guzzling car saves me more money then a high fuel efficient car.
I used some figures that would actually benefit you more in my example because most people only keep their cars for 7 years, had I used the 7 year average you would have came out a lot worse in the end.
Now you, or I, could really win big time if we chose to buy a used 80's era Chevy Sprint or Metro that got 40mpg. Assuming we could find one in good condition which these cars didn't fair well over time, most of those are now in junk yards now.
Sorry, but I think differently then most Americans on this subject, but I don't have any personal debt either so I guess that makes me really odd.