Best Columns: Car math, Fuel-saving zeros

The new price of driving

“All you need to know about the car market” is this: “price matters, enormously,” says David Leonhardt in The New York Times. That’s why “Americans are changing their driving habits so quickly,” and why GM is shuttering four truck and SUV plants and talking of selling off Hummer. Americans “fell in love” with big pickups and SUVs in the 1990s, when, “in practical terms,” gas was actually “becoming cheaper,” effectively hitting a record low in 1999. We ran some numbers for today: buying a Ford F-250 truck, including five years of driving and insurance, now costs $100,000; a Ford Focus, “less than $40,000.” Most of us are finding that if we need to occasionally “move some horses,” we can “rent a truck.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us