Gas Prices

we mostly shop at whole foods, trader joes, wegmans and roche bros.

i wonder if wegmans offers anything?(besides really low prices) but you're right, we don't spend much in any one place.

 

Those grocery store gas credit are not for Prius or any of small cars with a small tank. For ours, Gas credit of 10c/gal is awarded for every $100 spent. Ours has limit of upto 25 gal to use this credit for one time only. That means 10c/gal credit is potentially worth $2.50. But, I usually only use the credit for 8 gal or less, yielding only $0.80 for the credit earned. You need to be driving a big truck to maximize the return.

 

yeah, but those electrons better be flowing backwards. Dang Benjamin Franklin. Had a 50-50 chance of getting it wrong and screwed the math for every engineer for ever more.

And it's at $2.22 for me in Southern Kentucky

 

Once. It was such a severe hassle that I'll never do it again.

 

All together, in my whole life? Zero.

When I drive my car on a trip, all it costs is a little fuel and wear & tear. If I rent, it costs fuel, wear and tear, advertising, wages & benefits, legal fees, facilities, utilities, property and liability insurance, plus a profit for the stockholders. Those costs are all part of the calculations for the rental fee. I'd rather save the money toward my next car.

 

Very good point! If the thread had started with a cost/mile I am sure I would have followed suit.
Cost/gallon though, does help some people get a more emotional understanding of just how cheaper it is to drive electric.

My cost/mile is 0.5 cents/mile.
For comparison, at $3/gallon, a 50mpg car costs 6cents/mile. At $2/gallon, 4 cents/mile.

I do have solar, which is perfectly fair. Others use coupons to get cheaper gas, some drive m0re gently, there are lots of ways to lower fuel bills and I don’t see why any wouldn’t be “fair”.

The price I listed is calculated by taking the upfront costs, adding expected replacement/maintenance, subtracting incentives to get the net cost. I then divide that by the expected lifetime production to get the final result of 1.5cents/kWh.

It makes me definately understand why solar is getting so popular.

As for trips? We love taking our EVs on trips! From Minnesota we have been to California, Georgia, Missouri, and lots of regional trips. For us, planning for charging takes less time than planning which hotels to stay at.
At the end of each day of driving, I was still refreshed and frankly could have kept driving. But alas, we had reached our hotel.

I know a number of two car families who, if the EV doesn’t work on a trip, take the non-EV.
Of course, for some people an EV wouldn’t work for their trips, for those PHEVs make a great option.

 

we rented a mini van to take our daughter and furniture to college. kind of a pain, vs when you fly in somewhere and have a vacation car rental waiting (which can also be a hassle)
i prefer to have my own car for long trips. one that i know will get me there safely and on time, in all likelihood.

 

No longer buy enough for the discount. When I did, it was only for the store's gas station, none of which were on my route. Then there was commonly a line of cars waiting to use their credit before it expired at the end of the quarter, and then month.

 

costco usually has cheaper price, but you have to be a member

 

Safeway in our area has a plan like that, which provides credits at their own gasoline stations and Chevron/Texaco. I likewise discovered that while it worked fine for my wife's Honda Pilot, I didn't really save much with 6 or 7 gallon fillups on my Prime. Fortunately, Safeway modified their plan to allow one to use the rewards as credits on general grocery purchases, like $4 off for 3 reward points. This is equivalent to a 13 gallon gasoline purchase. So that is what I use now.

 

My Costco doesn't have a station. Their credit card does return 4% on gas purchases.
The BJ's is around 10 cents lower, and convenience store and station chains might reduce the price 5 to 10 cents when using their cards.

 

But beware of which station chains are excluded from that rebate -- Safeway, Kroger / QFC / Fred Meyer, Sam's Club, etc.

 

Mostly stores with their own discount program. Though that might have changed when Costco switched from Amex to Citi.

 

I usually get 40 cents off sometimes more for my minivan, but that's partially because we do not put too many miles on her, so it builds up. The Prius we do not use for that. But Shell/ExxononMobil others seem to have credit card deals where you get quite a bit off.

 

Agree- you can have your spouse or friend pull up after you, but that takes some planning. We have always used our substantial (4 kids) fuel points to fill the minivan.

 

Yeah, I've done that too, though if you read the small print on the "gas rewards" it usually says something like "Rewards for Gas are limited to 25 gallons for one vehicle per transaction". Also, it is hard, if not impossible, to line up multiple cars for the same pump and continue to use the pump without returning the nozzle back to the hook which terminate the transaction.

 

Stations for those brands aren't on my route, but others offer an introductory 25 cents off for the first three months before returning to the standard 10.

When I had the discounts, I'd get 8 to 10 gallons more in cans after filling the car. That usually went into the wife's car.

 

Yeah, I've done that too. Just bit messy to carry multiple jerrycans in the back of prius.

 

Same here. Otherwise, 8 gallons just wasn't enough to make it worth the bother.

 

Kroger is 35 gallons max, I have done 2 cars a couple times. Also I bring my 5 gal lawnmower can whenever I have a high reward ($1/gal) and an empty minivan tank.

Also Kroger frequently gives 4x fuel points on gift cards (currently on offer in Va where I live). This morning I bought a $200 Amazon GC which means:
800 points = 80 cents/gal, x 15 gallons = $12 or a 6% discount on the GC.
Plus I get 4% at grocery stores with the new Amex Gold so I'm up to 10%, or a $200 gift card for $180.
Amex Blue Cash Preferred gives 6% on groceries but we have maxed that out for the year (6% off $6k max/year on groceries)*

Amex Offers (if you have any of their credit cards) have had some decent deals on gas lately- spend $35, get 500 Member Rewards points, spend $20 at Exxon get $10 back (2x), and 10% off on Texaco. Also people like GasBuddy Rewards although I haven't used it.

All little savings here and there but it adds up over time.
*these cards have annual fees