Who am I?

I said in an earlier blog that I was a Ford guy. Today I think I am changing my identity a bit. I think I am starting to consider myself a Diesel guy. I drive a gas-powered F-150 every day and keep thinking about what my fuel costs are going to be this summer. I would sure love to have a small diesel-powered car to commute with. Unfortunately, being in California, it doesn’t look like that will be available to me anytime soon. 

The only readily-available diesels in this Left Coast state are full-size trucks. I can’t quite justify the purchase of a diesel pickup right now, and even if I did, I don’t think I would be saving much in fuel costs. I am currently getting 14-16 MPG at a fuel cost of around $2.40/gal (and that’s optimistic), which works out to an operating cost of about 16 cents per mile. Our Test Group Manager commutes in a Duramax dually and reports an average of about 18 miles to the gallon. At a fuel cost of $2.50/gal, that’s a little less than 14 cents a mile. A savings indeed, but not quite enough to justify the purchase of a $40,000 vehicle in my situation.

Now, what if there was a diesel-powered car for around $13,500 that got around 55 MPG? That brings us down to 4-1/2 cents per mile. Now we’re talking. That car is available in Canada. It’s a Smart car. We had an opportunity to drive one that Bosch brought to the states for show-and-tell. It was cool, but so far, it’s not available here. I say, bring them on! With that car, I would be a full-fledged card-carrying Diesel guy.