Cost justification for a china ride commuter.

[fatboy250]

I was curious to know how long it would take to cost justify the purchase of my DS motorcycle on the gas savings alone. So, I came up with this formula.

Price Paid for motorcycle
------------------------------------ = Time in years motorcycle pays for itself
(MPY)($gal)[1/Cmpg-1/Mmpg]

Where:
MPY = Estimated miles driven per year
$gal = current price of gas per gallon
Cmpg = car or other vehicle's miles per gallon
Mmpg = your china ride's miles per gallon

I came up with:

$980
---------------------------------- =.97
12,000(2.62)[1/22-1/75]

So, in a little less than (1) year the little thing will have paid for itself in gas alone!! I even did the math for another vehicle at 45mpg like my Concours and it came out to (3.5) years/42,000miles. Not as good, but definitely worth the consideration. Hopefully, I'll see 36k in the future. That's my goal.

Maybe this will be helpful for anyone trying to explain to their wife how they need one of these or to justify it in your own mind if you are sitting the fence right now. Especially if you are considering it as a commuter.

Hope this helps,
Jason