Ford Fiesta ecoNetic, a high price for low CO2 emissions
Over in the UK, the Telegraph has had a chance to spend some time with the new Ford Fiesta ecoNetic and came away with the realization that as mileage goes up you pay an increasingly high price for smaller and smaller returns. The problem, as we've mentioned here before, is the inverse relationship between mileage and fuel consumption. Each time you double the miles per gallon, the number of gallons used is cut in half. As the consumption gets smaller, those halves also become increasingly small. The chart after the jump shows the relationship between mileage, consumption and savings. It becomes pretty apparent that beyond 40 mpg, the actual savings start to become vanishingly small, while the cost of those savings get ever larger. Case in point is the Fiesta ecoNetic. A base Fiesta starts in England at £8,695 while the 1.4L diesel goes for £10,795 and the ecoNetic runs £11,845. That's £1,050 to go from 56 mpg (U.S.) to 63.5 mpg (U.S.). That 7.5 mpg improvement will net you a savings of £71 in fuel costs over 8,000 miles of annual driving. The car itself is definitely pretty nice and if people can actually get car loans again in 2010, Ford will probably do well with the Fiesta. However, not having access to the ecoNetic version may not be such a bad thing.
Gallery: 2009 Ford Fiesta
[Source: Telegraph]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jim 3:52PM (11/09/2008)
I think there's something wrong with your chart or the definition. Based on your text, the savings are compared to a car that gets 40mpg. Then at 40mpg on your chart, the savings should be zero. Below that, it should be negative. Above that, it should be positive. Maybe you're using a different definition of savings. Can you please explain?
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Jim 3:59PM (11/09/2008)
Upon re-reading, I see that your definition is on doubling the mpg for a given mpg. But at 30mpg, the savings should be 200 gallons per year, and I don't think that's what your graph shows.
Sam Abuelsamid 4:39PM (11/09/2008)
What the graph is showing is that each time you double mpg, the corresponding savings are cut in half. Going from 20 mpg to 40 mpg, you save only half as much fuel as you do going from 10 to 20 mpg. The chart is based on 12,000 miles a year of driving, so going from 10 to 20 you save 600 gallons. From 20 to 40 mpg you save only 300 gallons. You can see the full spreadsheet here. http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=psKvINr0UGcDtKpOwwTmJRw
wincros 5:22PM (11/09/2008)
Aside from the chart this is a frequent confusion in the media, to be kind. To be unkind, it is a way to sabotage enthusiasm for fuel savings. Here is the deal. It is not about buying a car that is going to give you a net savings. It is about using less petroleum which helps the economy and saves the planet. The net savings to the new owner argument is just not the point and serves to delay adoption of the new vehicles.
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Sam Abuelsamid 5:23PM (11/09/2008)
This is not about trying to sabotage anything. It's about highlighting the real costs and benefits of different technologies. Given the current economic realities, this is critical. If increased mileage saves little petroleum or has a minimal impact on CO2 emissions at a huge cost, people are not going to be able to afford to buy no matter what they would like to do. If more benefit can be derived at lower cost by investing elsewhere like reducing emissions from ocean shipping or electrical generation, we will have more positive impact on the environment. We need to focus our limited financial resources where it will do the most good.
axioll 6:09PM (11/09/2008)
I agree with wincros. The overall personal $$ gain might be impacted by the higher initial purchase price but it Wincros is right, an undeniable gain will come from an escalating decrease in oil consumption (which btw will lower everyone's gas bill) as these new electrics enter the global market. As more electrics rollout and the profit margin for them is stabilized, the prices on them will fall.
This article appears geared toward muting enthusiasm for eclectics. Interesting how they reference mpg in US but then reference savings over "8,000 miles of annual driving" which must be for Europeans as the statistics for th US are 12,000 miles of annual (per year) for Americans. Input AMERICAN annual miles and convert Eros to the dollar, and I'm guestimating the savings would be in the ballpark of $240 a year. In other words its like getting a 10% rebate on the additional $2K you forked over for the electric, for every year you own the car. Hardly "marginal" figures. If gas prices go up that figure goes higher.
Sam Abuelsamid, so what is this "huge cost"? The OPTION of going for a more expensive car with better milage? Are you suggesting Ford is going to cancel the diesel or base lines and FORCE people to buy the higher-priced electric? Then what is this huge cost that will prevent people from being "able to afford to buy no matter what they would like to do"?
tankd0g 7:10PM (11/09/2008)
Actually it hurts the economy. The saving the planet part is debatable. Reducing the 1% of 1% of CO2 produced buy 1% hardly seems worth what oyu give up to achieve it.
wincros 7:46PM (11/09/2008)
Re Sam: I think this is really short sighted. We all saw literally years of articles in everything from car magazines to newspapers and consumer magazines pooh poohing the savings of hybrid cars usually saying something like you would have to drive this thing for 10 years just to break even, with a snidely superior air. Sometimes their "evaluations" were based on the price of gasoline that had already gone higher by the time of publication. There have been very few sorry we were wrong articles and these same car oriented publications which catch the attention of people in the market are promoting high performance automobiles. Wonder why that is?
The thousand dollars more for the car mentioned in the article is not "a huge cost", and as fuel prices double will seem even less. Of course there are diminishing returns that make further improvements not worthwhile, but I don't think we have reached that point.
Sam Abuelsamid 8:01PM (11/09/2008)
Actually, the price difference is £1,050 or nearly $2,000 at current exchange rates. The £71 in savings is about $129 and that's based on UK fuel prices of around $8.00 per gallon well double the peak that we saw here this summer.
Certainly here in the US we have not come close to hitting that point of diminishing returns. As I said in the post the sweet spot is somewhere in the range of 40-45 mpg, well beyond where we are in the US today. My point was that beyond that mileage threshold, additional improvements would probably be better pursued elsewhere. That means moving toward EVs but also cleaning up the electrical generation system that feeds those EVs.
The European market is already largely already at that point of diminishing returns and really needs to look elsewhere for improvements that will actually make a measurable difference in emissions and petroleum consumption.
Wise Golden 7:38PM (11/09/2008)
If people can get car loans in 2010....
All credit worthy people will get loans in 2010. Those wh are not credit worthy, will not. That's the way it is meant to be.
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state 7:45PM (11/09/2008)
"Over the UK, the Telegraph has had a chance to spend some time with the new Ford Fiesta ecoNetic and came away with the realization that as mileage goes up you pay an increasingly high price for smaller and smaller returns."
GM has discussed long ago. Now, it takes the Telegraph to bring it your attention? Are you that dim?
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drew carlson 10:44PM (11/09/2008)
I believe what GM referred to was that it has a greater impact on CO2 emissions if mileage is improved on trucks and SUVs than it would be on small vehicles. That was why GM put a lot of emphasis on hybrid SUVs.
I think this is the same argument Sam is making. People like to see a vehicle getting 50 or 60 mpg, but what makes the largest difference for total emissions is to get a large vehicle from 15 mph to 20 mpg. Doesn't seem as green or sexy, but I think that is the point made by the graph.
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state 6:59AM (11/10/2008)
"I believe what GM referred to was that it has a greater impact on CO2 emissions if mileage is improved on trucks and SUVs than it would be on small vehicles. That was why GM put a lot of emphasis on hybrid SUVs."
Flip side of same coin. If it is 40 mpg cars with minimal benefit from increased mileage or larger vehicles that show a greater benefit, same thing. GM was talking about this years ago. My point that Sam is "dim" still stands.
camaj 9:47PM (11/10/2008)
I think ABG has it's sums wrong
a 56mpg car costs about £0.0625 per mile (£3.50/56) at current british prices (£1/litre)
A 63.5mpg car costs £0.055 a difference of £0.007 per mile (how apt!)
Over 8,000 miles you'd save £59.05. It would require a 20% rise in prices to save £71, which is what prices were a few months ago.
It seems a strange to use financial arguments in an environmental blog discussion. However doing the right thing usually pays off in the long run. If US manufacturers had been more concerned in doing the right thing when it didn't seem important,they would have been in a much better position now.
Eventually the world will recover financially, and oil prices will rise back to the levels we saw this year and beyond. Then the people who make a prudent choice now will reap the rewards.
If you assume "only" 8000 miles and a 10% yearly inflation then you'd see a return after 11 years and a tidy profit after 17. If you assume a 20% inflation then you'd see a return after 9 years and a massive saving (£5,200) after 17
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