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The Newspapers

We are in the process of preparing four newspapers for June 2015, one for each scenario. Read the newspapers to better understand the scenarios and if you feel moved to become a reporter for us, that would be great! You will need to Login/Register to be a Reporter Read the Newspapers

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Scenario: News
Newspaper for 1st June 2015

Irish Car Buyers Lose No Enthusiasm

Back Seat Drivers wonder “how our roads are going to accomodate another upsurge in car ownership”. For those people how bought a new car in 2004, in addition to wondering how they are going to pay for the car, they must be wondering how to pay for a refill of petrol. The price of oil is now over $60 a barrel. It may come down from this high, but more analysts say it is going up. So how can we keep our costs of motoring from escalating with the price of oil?

In the short term, we can drive less. Only make essential journeys. Try to combine trips where possible - do the shopping at the same time as visiting the dentist. This is of little consolation to those commuting or taking their children to school every day.

So how about selling the current car and buying something more economical? I did a few quick calculations. If you travel 10,000 miles a year, a Jeep doing 25mpg is costing €1,889 a year, an economical car doing 40mpg €1,180 and a 90mpg moped €525. So selling the gas guzzler for a small car will save you about €700 per year at current petrol prices and an additional €108 if prices rise 25% in the next year. Tempted?

Just to give a ballpark figure, if your car does 40mpg, each 1c rise in the price of a litre means an €11 increase over the year. And if you can coax 26mpg from your car instead of 25mpg, you save €73 per year! and 41mpg instead of 40mpg saves €29.

So if prices continue to rise we are going to have to work hard just to keep our motoring costs from excalating. At what point do we trade in the treasured motor for something sensible and if we leave it too long, will the price of these sensible cars have risen to meet demand? Will your big car be worth less than a small car?

I suggest the following list of ‘Most Sought After Car 2015’ in our four scenarios:

Business As Usual - BMW Sports Coupe - 350bhp on a 1.8l engine
Enlightened Transition - Toyota Next Generation - mixed fuel car, runs on biodiesel, standard diesel and hydrogen
Localisation - Mechano Family Kit Car - built it yourself from old car parts - comes plans and electric engine with battery system. The most popular is the one that looks like a Merc but only goes 25mph!
Fair Shares - Ford Fancy - takes 4 people, top speed of 60mpg (with 1 person), does 90mpg and looks like a stylish Morris Traveller.

Other suggestions welcome!

Posted by on 07/26 at 06:55 PM

PDF of the full reporton car ownership here by Central Statistics Office: http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/transport/current/vehlicm.pdf

Spreadsheet used to calculate cost of fuel: CostOfMotoring.xls

Posted by on 07/27 at 04:44 PM