advogato

Author's Note: This is a really old article that I'm bringing back to life for a different project. If you've read this before, ignore.

Assumptions are my business and business is good.  So let's get down to something that has been on my mind for a while - when does my purchase of a scooter break even?  There's a number of items to consider here:

1. The initial cost of the scooter
2. The price of gas
3. The difference in gas mileage between my car and the scooter
4. The decreasing value of the scooter as years go by (resale value)

It's not a terribly difficult forumla.  My break even comes when the money saved on gas + the current value of the scooter becomes greater than the initial investment in the scooter.  (This is where the 'assumption' business comes in - scooter devaluation, variable price of gas, inflation, etc., etc.)  Fortunately, we have Google Spreadsheets to the rescue.  Look at the chart above - it's the $3/gallon gas chart and the green line is my 'break even' line.  If a new car (scooter) loses half it's value when you drive it off the lot, then my break even point is out there a ways.  13,000 miles.  Considering that I've been putting 500 miles a year or so on my scooter, that's 26 years.   ...which is a long, long way out there.  But hey, high priced gas to the rescue:   This is UK-style $5/gallon gasoline.  This break even point is just 6000 miles.  If you tend to be gas-pessimistic like I am, then $5+/gal gas is something that's not far around the bend.  And when gas prices continue to rise, I'd bet that I'd put more than 500 miles per year on my scooter.

A long time ago (on a computer far, far away) I coded up my own little Gopher server - PyGS. It was... okay. It got some publicity - heck, they even used it in a local college classroom as an example of a simple protocol. Anyways, time went by and some others wrote better faster, better servers.