I am an Excel novice (At best) but wanted to start a sheet to track my total cost of ownership for the PiP. I would appreciate your opinions on any useful fields to add. Also, how does this compare to Fuelly? I want to know my total cost of ownership (Purchase price, sales tax, all maintenance items, registration fees, etc) per mile, as well as that total cost with energy included. When the PiP is sold, the funds will be subtracted from the original purchase price. My plan is to update the sheet at each gas fill up, and with each and every maintenance item. I have read some Consumer Reports articles saying that certain luxury cars true cost of ownership is in the $0.60/mile range. I did this calculation a few years ago for a Corolla I owned from new to 145k miles, and I came out to $0.08/mile, but I was not tracking energy costs then, and there were some years in there where gas was $4.00/gal. I used some assumptions in the sheet, ie, that the KW reflected in the PiP usage metrics are only about 75% of what came out of my wall. I've got "Kill a Watt" on order to get a better handle on that number. I added a "Test" line so that I can insert new rows, but keep the formulas working properly. Thanks for your opinions as well as all of the useful information on this board.
That looks great, Kevin! I'm also using and Excel spreadsheet, but not tracking total cost of ownership, just fuel and electricity. Yours is better, I think. And way better than Fuelly, since they don't let you track electricity costs. Although I imagine you could do a calculation and throw electricity in as an expense, it wouldn't give you an energy cost per mile or eMPG.
Thank you. Feel free to use it if you would like. I'm hoping to keep this car for 6-7 years, I drive about 30-35k miles per year, so it will be fun to watch that per mile cost come down over time (In a perfect world.)
Total cost of ownership for a plug-in Prius in the US would include purchase price or loan payments, initial taxes and fees, yearly vehicle taxes, gasoline and electricity costs, insurance, maintenance and repairs, as well as any modifications or upgrades, any specialized software, equipment, parts or tools purchased specifically for the car. Then when (if) you sell the car, subtract the amount you sell it for. And to figure out cost per mile, just divide by your total miles driven. Most of the websites that list TCO also include depreciation as a cost, but ignore purchase price. I think my way of including purchase price and ignoring depreciation is more honest, since purchase price is a sunk cost. My method also shows the accurate lowering in cost per mile the longer you have the car. For instance, my current total cost to own my Prius for just under a year so far works out to 85.7 cents per mile. But that per mile cost will go down significantly the longer I own the car.
To be accurate, you need to also track the value received by using the car. Avoided costs (bus, taxi, Uber, etc.) always seem to get left out.
Great input. Thank you. I had not factored in loan interest or insurance premiums, but they certainly are a factor.
Thanks. I'll probably use yours as a basis for modifying mine. This is going to be fun for us data freaks.
Those are important factors. From my standpoint, that's more a comparison than a total cost of ownership. For instance, in my case, my total cost to own a car is less than any other option except bus, and car ownership gives me more flexibility and time than bus travel, which gives enough subjective value that it's worth the difference in monetary value. So a comparison shows which costs less, but does not negate money spent. In other words, it's a good idea to check total cost of car ownership against total cost of other transportation options to determine the best value, but the results of that check do not directly affect total cost of car ownership itself.
Agreed. Thank you. With the spread of transportation networks and all the other delivery services out there, I am wondering when people with low mileage lifestyles will start to sell their cars en masse. When you really add up all the numbers, it might just make sense for a percentage of the population.
I have something like this as well. I'm around 30 cents a mile but imagine it will drop quite a bit when I sell it someday (and when I stop paying on my loan).
I have just run into this thread. Interesting.. Is int it a good idea to put the Excel sheet (who ever got it as a final well crafted, all factored version) into the Google Sheets and open it for all to edit? This helps each to add their own details on each tab/car?
I've got this up in Google sheets now, primarily so that I can update it from any computer. I've also added some more data to the sheet about my actual electric usage per my meter - It is messy, but tells me what I need.
I'll see if I can copy this, clear out my data, and make a public version that can be copied and edited as desired. My Google Sheets skills are limited.
Below is link to a blank sheet that is open for editing - If I was you, I would copy this, and create your own Google Sheet, as anyone could delete this doc and its contents at any time. I am not an expert at creating user-friendly spreadsheets, but I hope that this is helpful for you. You will need to add in your purchase price, as well any maintenance items. Each tank of gas that I use, I will right click on what is now Line 11, and select 'Add 1 above" Then I will copy line 11, and paste Line 11 in the new line- This will move all of the formulas and formatting in to the sheet. I keep the "Test" line in there for the purpose of Copy/paste (It is only 10 miles, so will not throw the numbers off drastically. You should also have a meter to measure the amount of Actual Kwh it requires to produce 1 Kwh to the in-car monitor. Finally, you will need to determine your electric rate - I choose to look at my top tier rate (Some may wish to average) and have to add in the energy, fuel, and another fee per Kwh charge to get the total. Feel free to message me if any questions.
