Gas Adjusted MSRP

I made this in a spreadsheet a while ago after thinking about the cost of gas. I wondered what the actual impact of higher and lower gas mileage would be over the lifetime of a car, so I found a site (some big one, like edmunds.com) with some mileage information in a nice little table for me to copy and paste into a spreadsheet. From there, I did a little work with equations to go ahead and simply calculate out the extra cost to drive the car over the best mileage car out there 16016 miles per year (that's about how much I figure I drive) at the current price of $3.50 per gallon at the car's average gas mileage. Then I highlighted the best of each column green and the worst of each column red. Lastly, I made a chart. Now for a little analysis. The Prius obviously gets the best gas mileage and therefore sets the standard by which the best are judged. Were gas extremely expensive ($100!), the Prius would obviously be the cheapest in the 5 and 10 year terms (usual ownership lengths, I figure). However, it starts higher than some cars, so will it be cheapest in the 5 and 10? Actually, this data says "no", even in the 10. At $3.50, it's still better to go sub-compact if you're really in it for the cheapest car out there (the Yaris, it turns out). Then comes the part where I go all apples-to-oranges and start doing mid-size and (what the site I got the data from calls) "near-luxury". After all, we're interested in economics here, not features, status symbols, performance, or any of that other stuff. So we look at those and get to see just how the mileage goes down from compact to mid-size and then again to near-luxury. Also, we see the obvious price rise. :) Enjoy the data. PS: If anyone wants, I can provide the spreadsheet. Anyone know of a good way to post non-image files on Blogger (or somewhere else for free)? PPS: Tax credits can be found straight from the horse's mouth

Raw Data

Oh man, it's the chart!