The cost of car ownership in the US « The Cost of Energy

The cost of car ownership in the US « The Cost of Energy:

The cost of car ownership is approximately $10,000 per year. Note that the differences among the states is primarily attributable to the insurance costs.:-(

Hmmm... Wonder how much of these costs might be saved from telecommuting? ...

From sustainable Lou

Note how little of the total cost of ownership is attributable to the cost of fuel.!:-)

Lou makes this additional comment that bears further investigation:

"I also notice that there’s no accounting for, you know, the stuff that comes out of the car’s tailpipe. David Archer says in the final paragraphs of his excellent book The Long Thaw that the total energy accumulated by the emissions from burning a gallon of gasoline is 40 million (yes, million) times the useful energy we get from the gasoline. One would be hard pressed to find a more extreme example of borrowing from the future at a high interest rate than that."

I know that we are lucky to get 15% efficiency in a gasoline car engine. Most of the heat and energy is lost. But the extreme mentioned here seems hard to explain.

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