When you have decided what price you can afford for a car, the less you pollute, the less you will pay for driving in the end.
Calculator once, I counted another.
I counted again and a fourth time. I doubted my calculation skills, that I must have forgotten some small but important fact that would turn the result of my calculation on its head.
But no. After several checks, the result still held.
It’s about is about changing the car.
Some years ago, I promised my children and myself that when the next car change time comes, at least one Erkki will stop messing up this world like before.
The most suitable car for my needs is a medium-sized family car. It must also be tough to drive. I considered for a long time which should be chosen – a plug-in hybrid or a fully electric car.
Among cars of roughly the same size and price, a fully electric car is significantly cheaper to use at current gasoline and electricity prices. The electric, emission-free range of hybrids is too short for my needs. That’s why the hybrid fell off the bills.
I also compared the costs of a fully electric car with my current car. The result was a calculation whose validity I doubted and checked and doubted. Many times.
When I don’t work remotely, my daily commute is 102 kilometers. There is no year-round bus service to my home that suits my working hours.
Most of the trip is on the highway. That has meant six liters of diesel every day – and on top of that other drives and the liters consumed.
Approximately 25,000 driving kilometers are accumulated per year. It takes 1,500 liters of oil and 3,120 euros in money and produces a sinful amount of emissions by the standards of one person.
Fully electric car would change the situation completely. The model I like to test drive travels a hundred kilometers with an average consumption of 20 kilowatt hours. With home charging and my current electricity contract, 100 kilometers would cost 2.30 euros. A year’s rides would cost 575 euros instead of the previous 3,120 euros.
From now on, monthly rides would cost 48 euros, while they now cost 260 euros. And even if the car were to be charged every other time at a charging station at a price of 20 cents per kilowatt hour, the savings would be 196 euros every month. The difference to the current one is huge – and the exhaust gas emissions are around zero.
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A month’s rides would cost 48 euros.
In the second calculation, I also took into account taxes, maintenance and insurance costs, and the rising monthly payments due to the purchase of the car. They affect the costs in such a way that due to the maintenance costs of the old car, I would save up to 3,000 euros a year and at least about a ton.
An unusual gig would have to happen in the electricity market for my calculations to radically change, and even then, as an electric car driver, I wouldn’t blow smoke into the world like I do now.
Today’s the car trade is the emission trade of ordinary people. It’s true that there aren’t really cheap new electric cars, but once you’ve decided what price you can afford, the less you pollute, the less you’ll pay for driving in the end.
The choice of the car’s driving force is a climate and eco-friendly act. By switching to electricity and regulating driving, the amount of personal emissions can be reduced effectively, a lot and quickly.
But I still laughed once, a second time, and even a fourth time.
The author is the head of Helsingin Sanomat’s sports department.
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