52 miles per dollar
By now I am sure that many Chicoans have seen the electric utility vehicles that roam around the CSU Chico campus. But more intriguing are the two GEM cars that I see occasionally around town, especially the 4-door white one with the black fabric doors.
I go back and forth between the value of a $15,000 golf cart versus a fully loaded bike with trailer. You can do a lot with a bike. Two bikes, including trailers and attachments, can take a family of four pretty much anywhere in town. A Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market will reveal dedicated individuals pushing the envelope of what a bike can handle, both in terms of kids and groceries.
But the 4-door GEM e4, made by Global Electric Motorcars (a subsidiary of Chrysler) does have its niches. When compared to a bike with trailer, it is faster, safer, and has definite advantages in inclement weather, especially when young children are taken into account.
Why compare the GEM to a bike instead of a car? Because if most of your driving is within the city limits, GEM is definitely the way to go. The GEM will go 30 miles on a charge, and according to the GEM website, a full charge requires 5 kilowatt hours of electricity. PG&E charges me $0.11559 per Kwh, thus it would cost me $0.58 to go 30 miles, while a dollar's worth of electricity would get me 52 miles.
For comparison, at $4.50/gallon, a dollar's would of gas will allow me to drive my my Subaru Impreza a whopping 5.5 miles, roughly the distance from City Plaza to the Horseshoe Lake parking lot in Upper Bidwell Park.
A full tank of gas now costs me about $58, and will allow me to do about 320 miles of in-town driving.
The cost of driving a GEM that distance is just over $6.
But let us not forget that ancient mode of travel that actually adds time to your lifespan--walking. (Cost of fuel depends on what you eat). Environmental researcher Alan Durning extrapolates from British Study that for every minute you walk, you live about three minutes longer.
I was not able to find any information about biking, but I would hope that it is comparable.
Finally, here is a sobering website that calculates the true cost of operating a gasoline-powered vehicle (cost of fuel is only one factor): http://commutesolutions.org/calc.htm