Modified Hybrid Gets 100 MPG: Worth it?

Greg Hanssen has no reason to be intimidated by rising gasoline prices. That's because his car gets 100 mpg, which he gleefully boasts on his custom California license plate. At a recent conference on hybrid vehicles, Hanssen impressed the auto engineers in attendance with his modified Toyota Prius.

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Caught this in the article also: "Frank gave a Mercury sedan a similar makeover and now the car gets 200 mpg."

So is it worth it? Let's figure this out. The cost of modifying these cars to support this mileage is $12,000.

11gls (typical hybrid tank) @ 200mpg = 2200mptank @$3.2/gl = $35/tank
20gls (typical car tank) @ 25mpg = 500mptank @$3.2/gl = $64/tank

At a cost of $12,000/mod?

Savings is $29/tank. $12,000/$29= 414 tanks of gas before recovery of mod expenditure.
Average person drives 29miles/day. (http://tmi.cob.fsu.edu/act/travel%20and%20commute%20facts.pdf)

So that's 414 * 2200miles/tank = 910,800miles/29mpday= 31,406 days/365 = 86 years.

So 86 years before that investment pays for itself. Wow... So this might be for the green-minded only. But, there are a number of other things you could consider that might justify the purchase.

First, say you're prepared to pay, likely in some kind of payment plan, this kind of money in the first place. For instance, you may just walk into a dealership with a sufficient income to afford a cost equivalent to the hybrid cost, plus an extra $12k or so, without having a definite car in mind. So you're prepared to 'not have' money on a monthly basis in proportion to whatever average monthly payments on a car of this price range would be.

But what most people who have this kind of 'disposable income' don't consider, is the fuel costs on monthly basis. Given our typical, 'decent gas mileage' car above, a tank should last you a couple of weeks, +/-. So that's an extra $70/month, plus the time in filling up you waste. Tack onto this *snacks* that people will commonly buy at a gas station, which may or may not be significant, but whatever. So let's say $80/month.

That's suddenly $80/month that you don't have when purchasing a typical car. And a lot of people don't think about it.

So let's say you're looking to purhcase a typical sedan in the 30,-35k range. Here's a list of such cars, many are commonly bought as you can see.
http://tinyurl.co.uk/vdtn

Now, you can buy a Honda Civic hybrd for $22k, mod it for 12k, and have an equivalently priced car that gets 100mpg. And since many people just kind of buy gas 'as it comes,' without really factoring it into a budget, there is an element of it *seeming* like you have that much more spending money on a monthly basis. Because while even though you actually *do* have more spending money month to month (even if you were to consider 100mpg as opposed to 200), you are achieving it by purchasing a car of a different size class, thus giving up things such as interior car space, trunk space, and power.

So you could have a hybrid for 12k less than a typical sedan, whilst paying just under half on gas *NOW*, or you could pay the equivalent cost of the sedan, mod your hybrid, and have some extra money month to month, filling up only once every 2 - 2 1/2 months, *LATER*.

I guess it kind of depends on your lifestyle, and whether or not you're much of a pre-planner.

Or... you could spend $12.5k on a Yaris and get the gas mileage of a hybrid anyway... I think they come in 6 packs now.

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