Sorry Dave

Much as I love Dave Ramsey, I have to disagree with him here. He recently sent the following letter to those of us who subscribe to his emails.

The Math Doesn’t Work
Let’s say you currently drive a vehicle worth $10,000 that gets 15 miles/gallon. There’s this $25,000 hybrid you’re thinking about buying that gets 25 miles/gallon. That’s a $15,000 price difference just to get 10 more miles a gallon. If you drive 100 miles a week, that’s about a $10 difference a week.
So that would be about $40 extra you’re spending a month in gas if you stuck with the current car. A monthly car payment is MUCH more than that! To get your money back at current gas prices, it would take you almost 29 years to save $15,000 in gasoline!

Sorry, pal. I am hard pressed to find a hybrid that gets 25 mpg. The folks behind fueleconomy.gov recently recalculated mpg rates to account for cold starts, use of AC and other factors, to come up with more realistic mpg figure. The newer, REDUCED mpg rate for a 2007 Toyota Prius is 48 city, 45 hwy, average altogether, 46.

I drive a car worth $2,332 that gets 23 mpg in-town. An old, cranky diesel Mercedes Benz. I have 303,000 miles to date. And they say she has only used half her miles.

According to his own scheme, if I drive 100 miles a week, that's TWO gallons a week in a Prius. Of gasoline, not higher-priced diesel. I don't. I drive about 200 miles a week, so I would buy 4.5 gallons a week instead of almost 10. Bottom line, I would spend less than half what I do now, on fuel, rather than saving the paltry $10 a week he cites. Now, I fill up every 2.5 weeks and spend about $65. Multiply that out to make it a 3 week run, and it would $78. In a Prius, I would fill up every 3 weeks and spend $42, a savings of about $36. Annual savings = $504 (52 weeks / 3 week fillups = 14*$36 savings).

Of course Dave is right. I would save the equivalent of 1 1/2 car payments a year by switching to a hybrid -- *IF* saving money were my only motivator. IF our air were not a concern. IF I were not sickened by our gluttony and profligate use of a non-renewable resource.

You see, my own interpretation of the Bible (yes, you can do this. You don't have to listen to the preachers. Let God speak to your own heart. He does, if you will listen...) is that in Genesis, when God gave us "dominion over all the earth," it does not mean we are empowered to be the reckless consumers of all we want. It means we are trusted to be the wise and careful stewards of His gift to us. Today, we are not.

So...IF I were to buy a hybrid car, it wouldn't necessarily be only for economic reasons. It would be because I long to be a careful and responsible user of what has been so freely given to us.

BUT...I am not buying a new car. I don't need a car payment. I agree with his general theories on all that.

But, Dave, if you are laying out a scenario to make a point, please please use realistic figures to make the point. Hybrids don't get 25 miles a gallon. Do your homework first. Otherwise you might lose some of your audience.