I just hit 3k miles on the Vespa yesterday. I did some quick math (illustrated below) and it looks like I've spent roughly $140 on gas in the nearly two years that Timber and I have had the Vespa. That's not bad when I compare to my truck that would have cost roughly $494 to go the same distance. So thus far I've had a gas savings of $354 and saved 126 gallons of gas. The only downside is that I've spent way more than gas savings ($354) in the time that we've had the Vespa on insurance and registration. Such is life. Here are the calculations:
Vespa: 3000 miles, 65 miles/gallon, roughly $3 per gallon for gas
3000m / 65 m/gal = 46.15 gal, 46 gal * $3/gal = $138
Truck: 3000 miles, 17 m/gal, roughly $2.80 per gallon for gas
3000m / 17 m/gal = 176.47 gal, 176.5 gal * $2.80/gal = $494.20
You can do the rest if you so wish. In my opinion using less resources is more important than buying carbon credits or offsets because from what I understand about carbon credits and offsets the process is obscure and doesn't always do much good. There was an NPR report the other day talking about an offset project in Uganda that seemed to be harming the local population. See here.
Posted by troutm8 at August 21, 2007 09:57 AM