Calculating the efficiency of an Electric Car

A comment on the GM-Volt site (from Darren - Comment #45 on this post) included a link to this Electic Car Efficiency Calcuator. Darren ends his comment with: "My electricity would have to cost more than $0.225 CAD/kWh to make the volt more expensive to drive than a car getting 50MPG. However, it was mentioned before and I agree that they payback isn’t what’s going back into my wallet. The payback is the reduction of my carbon footprint and dependence on foreign oil while driving a car that doesn’t look like a suppository."

Site: GM-Volt Site
Page/Post: What will it cost to drive a Chevy Volt
Spreadsheet: Electric Car Efficiency Calculator

Personal Investment Strategy - The Crossover Point Calculator

Back in Jan, 2007, Trent posted some ideas around a financial investment concept he credits to the book “Your Money or Your Life”… explaining The Crossover Point as: “the point at which your investments begin to earn more money than the cost of your living expenses. The crossover point is usually reached by keeping your living expenses lower than your income and investing that amount for the long term.”. Comments were added to this post through August, 2007, including one from an un-linked reader named “Owen”, who posted a link to a google spreadsheet which lets others show their own scenario. I copied that spreadsheet, made what seemed to be 1 necessary fix and posted it here for your consumption (the “get your own copy” link below is the best to use on this particular spreadsheet since it is more relevant to edit privately with your own information).

Site: The Simple Dollar blog
Original Concept from the Book: Your Money or Your Life
Page/Post: The Crossover Point - where “Owen”, a reader/commenter, offered his google spreadsheet: “Here’s my stab at Doing something like this with Google Spreadsheets...”. I made some changes to correct what I think was an error and minor format changes - but awaiting comment from Owen if this needs to be re-fixed or pointed to his site/copy.

Spreadsheet: The Crossover Point Calculator | Get Your Own Copy (by clicking this link you will immediately get your own copy in your Google Docs account - or be prompted to sign-in / register)