My Half Price Ride - Operations

There are two ways to own a vehicle affordably: buy a good one, and operate it wisely. I bought my Half Price Ride in early 2023. Operating it involved 4 types of work: good driving habits, insurance, and proper maintenance.

In the first 30 months of owning the car, I have spent $7640 on fuel, maintenance, and insurance:

• $2951 on insurance, $1180 a year
• $2470 to drive 38.2K miles, $988 a year
• $2219 on maintenance, $887 a year.

The biggest expense was insurance. Car insurance, like any service, is about price vs. quality. Let’s look at price.

Car Insurance

Saving money on car insurance is about reducing cost and risk.

Reducing the Cost

• Shop around for new insurance, every year
• Consider higher deductibles for your insurance coverage
• Ask your insurance company to see if there is a discount for extra deterrents like a club or immobilizer system
• Consider bundling your car insurance with homeowners’ or renters’ insurance
• Consider bundling your car insurance with your partner’s car insurance.
• For older cars, consider whether to have collision coverage. Eventually a car is not worth repairing. Alternately, you could save enough money from skipping collision coverage to cover the cost of any repairs.
• Contest any speeding ticket or other infraction. Infractions increase the cost of insurance.

Reducing Your Risk

A longer-term strategy to reduce insurance costs is to avoid accidents/claims, the single biggest cause of insurance price hikes.

• Take a defensive driving course.
• Take a bad-weather driving course if you live in an area with bad weather.
• Do not speed or drive recklessly. That extra 3 minutes you might save on your commute is not worth it. What is the potential increased insurance cost over 5 years vs your time savings?
• Get a dash cam with front & rear cameras, and increase its storage to record 2+ weeks of driving.
• Get a tracking device installed, to find/recover your car if it is stolen. Even an AirTag can do this, imperfectly.
• Keep your car key away from your car to prevent a key highjacking attack.
• Store your car somewhere safe, like a garage or carport. If you live in an apartment or condo, park it somewhere visible.

Ways to Identify Quality Car Insurance

Insurance that is not helpful in an emergency is useless. It is wise to identify good insurance before you need it. The best approach is to ask others.

• Ask neighbors, friends & colleagues. What was experience when dealing with claims? What happened when their car was stolen, in an accident, or vandalized? Was service prompt? Did the insurance company fight for them in a dispute? Were they able to get their vehicle repaired correctly and quickly?
• Find local Facebook groups and Reddit threads. Again, what were folks’ experiences?
• Talk to auto shops you trust, in person. What is their experience with different insurance companies? Which ones accept reasonable repair estimates? Which ones refuse to pay a reasonable rate, communicate badly, or only pay for mediocre parts?
  • Half of the auto shops I trust had terrible things to say about State Farm: unreasonably low repair prices, bad communication, late payments. The other half were dubious. I excluded State Farm when looking for auto insurance.
  • Conversely, a third of the shops liked Pemco: experienced adjusters, reasonable repair pricing, timely payments. Several mechanics said they used Pemco for their family’s insurance.

Besides insurance, there is a second way to reduce the costs of operating a car: drive with skill.

Driving Techniques

There are ways to save money and time while driving.

• Drive less! Group errands together. For example, I will buy groceries, home repair items, gas, and visit a friend in one trip.
• Find efficient routes, especially for your commute. Google Maps can do this.
• Relax. Listen to a podcast or music when driving. I accelerate and brake more if I focus too much when driving.
• Use basic “hypermiling” techniques: accelerate and brake gently. I maintain a generous following distance, so it is easier to brake gently and use the regenerative braking built into my hybrid car.
• Use your car’s ‘Eco’ mode
• Use advanced hypermiling techniques: pulse and glide, and constant-throttle-position driving.
• Drive flat routes. Cars use more energy going up hills.
• Use cruise control for long trips.
• Keep the windows up.
• Only use the A/C when needed.
• Drive on the highway at least weekly, to get the engine up to operating temperatures. This burns off any gas or moisture that may leak into the oil.

In addition, my car is a plug-in hybrid, and there are ways to make the best use of it.

Plug-In Hybrid Techniques

Plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) are odd because the driver must choose between 2 fuel sources: electricity and gas. These sources (modes) have very different costs. For example, my car is much cheaper to drive in electric mode (40 miles per dollar) than in gas mode (9.5 miles per dollar). To save money, I want to maximize the time driving in electric mode.

The two sources also have different ‘fueling’ times. I charge my car at home using a 110V outlet. It takes 5.5 hours to charge the car with 25 miles of range. Refilling the car with gas takes 5 minutes.

I did not find many resources on the best way to drive a plug-in hybrid, so I experimented with different approaches. Here are my personal guidelines for plug-in hybrid driving:

• If I’m driving less than 25 miles before I can recharge, drive solely in electric mode
• If I’m driving more than 25 miles, use electric mode for the slower part of the trip. Use gas mode for the faster speeds (i.e. freeway driving).
• If I’m driving a long distance, only use gas mode, and keep the battery above 25%. The hybrid system gets better gas mileage with more charge in the battery.
• Do not use charge mode. The energy loss is not worth it.

Let’s walk through a few different scenarios:

Scenario 1 - Less than 25 Miles In a Day

Drive in electric mode the whole time.

Scenario 2 - 50 Miles, Stop-and-Go Errands First

Drive in electric mode first. Use gas mode after the battery is drained, ideally when freeway driving.

Scenario 2b - 50 Miles In a Day, Stop-and-Go Errands Second

Drive in gas mode the first half of the trip and keep the battery above 80%.

In the second half of the trip, use electric mode between errands.

Scenario 3 - 70 Miles in a Day, 2 Different Trips 3 Hours Apart

3 hours apart means I can charge my car for 3 hours, adding 60% of its capacity. I can use 160% of the battery capacity: the original 100% charge plus an extra 60%.

With 160% available, use 80% of the battery during each trip: run the battery down to 20% for the first trip, charge it for 3 hours, and repeat.

Scenario 4 - Road Trips, More than 150 Miles in a Day

Drive in gas mode the whole time. Use electric mode only at slow speeds, and keep the battery above 25%.

Charging

The battery is the single most expensive part of a PHEV, so it’s wise to make it last as long as possible. One way: do not let the battery sit at ‘fully charged’ for long.

The simple way to do this is by using a charging schedule. When I park my car, I will tell the car when I’m going to depart, so the battery is charged up to 100% shortly before I leave.

The cheapest source of electricity is likely your home. Charging at home costs me $0.11 per kilowatt-hour.

Results

I have spent $1,957 in gas and $513 in electricity to drive 38,200 miles. That comes out to 15.5 miles per dollar, or $0.065 per mile. I am able to drive in electric mode 55-70% of the time.

When I drive in gas/hybrid mode (road trips), I’m able to get 52.5 miles per gallon.

The battery is more efficient in moderate weather, going further per kilowatt-hour. I will get 3.8 miles per kilowatt-hour in winter, and 4.8 miles per kilowatt-hour in summer. With a ~7 kWh useable battery, that works out to 26 miles in winter, and 33 miles in summer.

Finally, there are non-driving ways to increase the longevity of a car…

Non-Driving Techniques

• Fill the tires with air every two weeks. My car recommends 35 psi, and my tires are rated to 44 psi. I split the difference, and inflate my tires to 39 psi.
• Use high-quality gas, like Top-Tier Fuel. AAA did a study, and Top-Tier gas creates 19X less gunk (carbon) deposits than normal inside a car engine. Costco sells Top-Tier fuel at a low price.
• Keep the gas tank at least 1/4 full to keep the fuel pump cool
• Park the car in a garage, so it is protected from the weather.
• Keep the car clean and empty. No trash. Vacuum and wipe it out regularly. Do not hang things on the car.
• Keep the printed specs of my car in the glovebox, including its engine, transmission, hybrid, and suspension.

There is a third big way to reduce car costs: maintenance. That is the next post…

Published 01 June 2025