A gang called CNW Market Research released a report a couple of years ago, they call it “Dust to Dust”, that purports to measure the entire amount of energy consumed by cars broken down by type and specific models. They have reached the breathless result that: “Hybrids Consume More Energy in Lifetime Than Chevrolet’s Tahoe SUV”.
The results are expressed as energy dollars per mile. The cost of fuel is a relatively small part of the total — this is expected.
The large disparity between, e.g. a Prius and a Tahoe is of course meant to be provocative, and unexpected. Since, obviously a Tahoe uses on the order of three times the amount of gasoline per mile, and there is substantially more raw materials in a Tahoe. Their methodology involves determining the life expectancy of each vehicle and have come up with a Prius lasting only 109,000 miles whereas a Tahoe is 286,000. The huge difference means the energy costs of everything (except gasoline) is horrendously slanted against the Prius.
Whether you agree with that determination or not, the report does call to attention some of the vast amounts of energy use of automobiles in general.
The overall “Industry Straight Average” (by that I take to mean, not sales weighted) is $2.96 Energy per mile in CY2006. This is from the spreadsheet on their site which is updated.
Fuel/gasoline costs (paid for directly by the owner/driver) would account for only ~ $0.15 / mile. Their assumption was $3.00/gallon in 2005 dollars
Who is paying this? I’m sort of unclear — according to the report it is the total energy, including that expended by “society”.
Fuel for the “Industry Straight Average”: 20.37mpg x 11,183 gallons = $33,550. Life expectancy is 178,739 miles, and using the report numbers (cy2005) the energy cost per mile is $2.28.
That totals out to $388,000 PER AUTOMOBILE in its lifetime (of ~ 15 years, i can’t find it in their report but it must be in there somewhere). Or perhaps $24,000 PER YEAR that supposedly someone is paying. The owner might be paying a couple of thou a year in repairs and actually paying for the car