Should I buy a new boat while gas prices are low

[letsgetsailing3]

The answer to "Should I buy a new boat now?" is always YES!

Whatever reason you need to justify the NOW part is OK with us, and we support you, brother.

[Boatbuyer7]

Originally Posted by BandB

That's about as much a non sequitur as I can imagine. First, if you believed gas was impacting purchase prices then it would be the opposite. Prices down when fuel costs up so buy then. But you buy a boat when you are ready to go boating. And if you are depending on cheap gas then you'll be right at best half the time. 2008 people were predicting $6 a gallon in the US as prices bumped close to $4. Now they're under $2 in areas. What goes down must come up. Call it the reverse spinning wheel concept.

Gas cost is certainly a budgeting consideration but there are so many others. Dockage, maintenance, insurance. But more important in timing is where you are in your life and what you want to and can afford to do.

I always laugh at fuel discussions anyway. One person barely uses any. a64pilot mentions the horrors of 75 gallons in a weekend. How about boats that use 200 gallons per hour?

Should I buy a Ferrari now because fuel prices are down? That question is just as logical as yours. At under 10 mpg, the Ferrari will still get better fuel mileage than a boat.

Thanks for your insight BandB, I'm new to all this and unfortunately, I'm still in the process of reaching the "i-don't-care-about-gas-prices" tax bracket, which is why I brought this up.

[deckofficer]

This sharp drop in fuel prices is something I predicted 5 years ago and not based on future supply and demand. The OPEC nations has always in the past cut production to counter dropping prices but this time has not. I'm not a conspiracy nut, but believe there is a reason other than supply and demand for these lower prices.

The largest threat to the oil industry is the emerging electric vehicle market. It is my belief that oil prices will be held low to both cripple the EV market and dry up funding for battery development.

Remember the large spike in fuel costs in the early 70's? This gave footing to the Japanese auto industry that at the time was producing cars that got 25 mpg vs our Detroit Iron getting 12 mpg. So many consumers switched to these economy cars that Big Oil realized they shot themselves in the foot with the contrived pricing.

It is my sincere belief the Big Oil will do everything in their power to kill the EV market and future battery development. If you find this hard to believe, just watch the stock prices of any company that is solely EV like Tesla during this period of relaxed fuel costs.

If you don't remember GM's EV1, it started life with lead acid batteries and about a 50 mile range. Then GM switched to NiMH and performance went up along with range. Fuel prices dropped, demand for the EV1 dried up and since California was forced via law suits to stop the 3% zero emission mandate for cars sold in the state, GM pulled the EV1 and left that market. Chevron Oil then bought the patent rights to NiMH batteries larger than 10 ahr (D cells) and removed them from production.

So to answer the OP's question, don't buy a fuel guzzling boat now because due to the lower fuel prices their prices will go up, and when the EV market has been crushed the fuel prices will climb even higher with the loss of that competition.

[a64pilot]

Assume electric automobile replace 50% of the private automobiles, I leave out trucks and commercial vehicles to make this easy, just private automobiles.


Your going to have to build hundreds of power plants to supply the electricity, average private automobile consumes more energy that the average private house I believe, there is an enormous amount of energy in 1 gl of gasoline, even if you make the electric auto twice as efficient as a current internal combustion one your still going to have to increase electrical generation to replace 80 million gallons of gasoline per DAY.
Good luck with that.
I like electric autos, they have their place, I put money down on the Leaf before it was built to reserve one, but unfortunately they will not come close to replacing gas cars. I wish they could actually.

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Assume electric automobile replace 50% of the private automobiles, I leave out trucks and commercial vehicles to make this easy, just private automobiles.


Your going to have to build hundreds of power plants to supply the electricity, average private automobile consumes more energy that the average private house I believe, there is an enormous amount of energy in 1 gl of gasoline, even if you make the electric auto twice as efficient as a current internal combustion one your still going to have to increase electrical generation to replace 80 million gallons of gasoline per DAY.
Good luck with that.
I like electric autos, they have their place, I put money down on the Leaf before it was built to reserve one, but unfortunately they will not come close to replacing gas cars. I wish they could actually.

I have always respected your postings, and now that I know you have a Leaf, even more so now. There will come a day when we all realize the Sun gives us all the energy we need for modern life and we stop using the poison of fossil fuel burning. Just 25 kw of solar panels placed in the Southwest would provide a family for both home energy needs and personnel transportation needs.

While I was still working in off shore oil exploration I had the chance to chat up the Company man for Petrobras on his view of the future EV market. His reply was the oil industry had stopped EVs in the past and will be able to in the future.

It is just their mind set, you can't challenge Big Oil.

[BandB]

a64Pilot turned over a new Leaf. If Tesla still had the sports car that would interest us. Would have been a fun car to own. It wasn't available and we went pretty much to the other extreme. Nothing about our cars environmentally friendly (Living in South Florida we wanted convertibles) but we don't drive them many miles a year so that's out contribution I guess. Instead we use our boats and burn lots of diesel.

I do appreciate those who try technologies like the Leaf. It's really not the technology to be proven sometimes as it is our ability to be comfortable within any limitations it has.

Now the autopilot of the new Tesla is certainly an interesting boat driven concept.

[a64pilot]

I'm sorry, I do not have a Leaf, I had money down that I honestly think just disappeared, Nissan really botched it's launch and I eventually decided our current Prius was just fine as we do a lot of highway travel in excess of the leafs range.
My personal belief is that electric if it ever becomes mainstream won't be practical until you can pull into a "battery change station" where your dead battery is removed and swapped with a fully charged one so you can get back on the road, or our society changes.

Actually Hydrogen is as viable as electric I believe, problem of course is where does the Hydrogen come from? Massive amounts of electricity of course.

Boeing I believe has honestly built a small fusion reactor, not to power automobiles of course, but maybe it could be a source of the massive electrical capacity that would be required to shift to electric?

See I think fossil fuels are too valuable a natural resource to just burn it.

My apologies, it was Lockheed Martin
http://aviationweek.com/technology/s...eactor-details

[BandB]

Tesla is testing a battery changing station.

Range has been and still is the huge issue. Driving locally is one thing but to have a car you can't drive on a trip is a difficult sale.

[a64pilot]

I didn't know about the battery changing station, has to be a very limited market though, I've seen one Tesla on the road around here.

Our plan was the Prius for trips, and the Leaf for everything else. I don't know the Leaf's range, but it was initially advertised to be 200 miles, I think I could beat that easily if that range was for the average American driver. I need to tune the Prius, but until recently it was easy to get 60 MPG with it.
I hope though that I have bought my last automobile.

[Enrique100]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Assume electric automobile replace 50% of the private automobiles, I leave out trucks and commercial vehicles to make this easy, just private automobiles.


Your going to have to build hundreds of power plants to supply the electricity, average private automobile consumes more energy that the average private house I believe, there is an enormous amount of energy in 1 gl of gasoline, even if you make the electric auto twice as efficient as a current internal combustion one your still going to have to increase electrical generation to replace 80 million gallons of gasoline per DAY.
Good luck with that.
I like electric autos, they have their place, I put money down on the Leaf before it was built to reserve one, but unfortunately they will not come close to replacing gas cars. I wish they could actually.

Sorry but there are a few inaccuracies here. For one, electric motors are already on average about 3x more efficient than gasoline combustion engines. So right there you are already using a third of the energy to get from point A to point B in an electric vehicle.

The actual amount of energy in a gallon of gas is 33kWh electric equivalent, so yes- a lot of energy. But you only need a third of that in electricity (ok maybe half if you allow for charging losses) to get the same distance in an electric car. So let's say you have a driver who travels 40 miles a day, every day. In an average electric vehicle, he will need about 10-15 kWh to go that distance. So about 300-450 kWh a month. I guarantee you average house with climate control uses more of that in electricity each month. That car definitely doesn't use more electricity than a house.

Plus, when are these cars most likely to be charging.. Night time when load on the grid is lower anyway. No way would hundreds of power plants have to be built for electric vehicles alone, since they are charging while excess capacity is available. And you're not even allowing for the massive amount of energy it takes to refine oil into gasoline and transport it. Gasoline isn't just scooped up out of the ground ready to put in your car.

Sorry for the ramble... Nothing against gas or electric. I have one of both

[tropicalescape]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I'm sorry, I do not have a Leaf, I had money down that I honestly think just disappeared, Nissan really botched it's launch and I eventually decided our current Prius was just fine as we do a lot of highway travel in excess of the leafs range.
My personal belief is that electric if it ever becomes mainstream won't be practical until you can pull into a "battery change station" where your dead battery is removed and swapped with a fully charged one so you can get back on the road, or our society changes.

Actually Hydrogen is as viable as electric I believe, problem of course is where does the Hydrogen come from? Massive amounts of electricity of course.

Boeing I believe has honestly built a small fusion reactor, not to power automobiles of course, but maybe it could be a source of the massive electrical capacity that would be required to shift to electric?

See I think fossil fuels are too valuable a natural resource to just burn it.

My apologies, it was Lockheed Martin
Skunk Works Reveals Compact Fusion Reactor Details | Technology content from Aviation Week

Someone is building an "artificial Sun" that will be able to power the earth so I believe the fear of big industry car makers having control of the future of electric vehicles may be misplaced ,perhaps the near future but not much after 2050 when the artificial sun will provide all power needs..!! ( optimist)

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Wasn't a horror, but 75 gls a weekend, at right now today's fuel prices
Current Fuel Prices - Panama City Marina
is over $1,200 a month, that's significant for say a $20,000 to $30,000 boat.

I gotta think the boats that burn 200 gl an hour are just like the private jets that do, it just doesn't matter, it costs whatever it costs. I've seen the bigger jets like the G650 pay an extra $10,000 or so a tank of fuel instead of having the pilot fly ten minutes away from Miami where fuel was a couple bucks a gl cheaper. But if you can afford the more than 65 million for the airplane, whats an extra 10 K for a fill up?

Might not make a difference to the new boat buyers, but to the guys who can only afford to buy second or third hand, the cost of running a boat is significant. Boats that use huge amounts of fuel are likely to depreciate more.
,

[Stu Jackson]

AHey, with gass prices half what they were last summer, how come the cost of new sails (made with petroleum products) isn't half of what they were last summer, too?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Enrique100

Sorry but there are a few inaccuracies here. For one, electric motors are already on average about 3x more efficient than gasoline combustion engines. So right there you are already using a third of the energy to get from point A to point B in an electric vehicle.



The actual amount of energy in a gallon of gas is 33kWh electric equivalent, so yes- a lot of energy. But you only need a third of that in electricity (ok maybe half if you allow for charging losses) to get the same distance in an electric car. So let's say you have a driver who travels 40 miles a day, every day. In an average electric vehicle, he will need about 10-15 kWh to go that distance. So about 300-450 kWh a month. I guarantee you average house with climate control uses more of that in electricity each month. That car definitely doesn't use more electricity than a house.



Plus, when are these cars most likely to be charging.. Night time when load on the grid is lower anyway. No way would hundreds of power plants have to be built for electric vehicles alone, since they are charging while excess capacity is available. And you're not even allowing for the massive amount of energy it takes to refine oil into gasoline and transport it. Gasoline isn't just scooped up out of the ground ready to put in your car.



Sorry for the ramble... Nothing against gas or electric. I have one of both

I'll accept most of your numbers as I think truthfully they are pretty close and no point in arguing transmission losses etc. But got me thinking as my numbers were just off the hip so I did some looking
Leaf has a 24 KWH battery so we'll just use that. Looked up average house uses 30 KWH per day, interestingly Louisiana had the highest electrical use and Maine the lowest, I wouldn't have thought that.
Anyway here's the rub, average number of automobiles per house in the US is 2.8 or maybe 2.28 I forgot already, so assuming both cars are used then yes, at least as much energy is used in automobiles as in the house.
Kind of sobering to realize that.

Admittedly automobiles aren't driven every day, lots of variables there, but the point only was that we as a nation use way more energy with out love affair with the automobile than most realize, but then too most think that the electrical outlet is an in-exhaustible supply too. It's people that live on boats, or off the grid etc that come to realize just how much energy is used as they have to come up with a way to supply it.

Truthfully I cannot understand how any reasonable person could justify a 12 MPG or so SUV as a daily driver, to me that is just throwing away money.
I've run the numbers of cost of ownership between an SUV and a Prius, and if you drive much, it's astonishing.

You wouldn't believe how much of an astonishment this sailboat thing is to me, a person that only had powerboat experience. I feel as though someone is playing a prank on me and sneaking fuel into my fuel tank as It seems as if I just don't burn hardly any fuel.

[nautical62]

I think one should look at all the variables that influence the cost of boat ownership, not just one of the variables.