OTR: Commuting Cost Lockdown

 I was thinking about this the other night while I was driving home from the office. I'm doing the "hybrid" work schedule these days. We're asked to be in the office three days a week. However, I am working on a project that requires a fair number of meetings with colleagues in Asia, so I have days where the first call starts at 7am and the last call ends after 8pm. My normal commute is about an hour each way and that will make for a very early start and a very rushed dinner if I want to catch the late call at home. So I try to get in a couple days a week and add a day if I need to meet in person with someone.

Now add in the price of gas. I have a decently efficient VW Tiguan that generally gets north of 30 miles per gallon for my commuting. My prior car averaged around 22mpg, so that is actually a big improvement. Gas is pretty much double what it was during Covid and close to doubling pre-Covid, so even with better mileage, the savings are gone if I drive to work every day. A shorter workweek helps matters, but I'm sure that many people are feeling the pinch, especially when coupled with inflationary increases on everything else.

This makes me wonder if we're headed back to knowledge workers staying home, simply because going to work costs too much. I know that Metra (the commuter rail system) is experimenting with $100 monthly passes that allow unlimited rides anywhere on the rail system. I suspect they will get some takers and draw people back to the train if they are heading into Chicago from an outlying suburb.

In any event, the new ways that we work and the resistance of many people to leaving their bunny slippers behind, coupled with higher expenses, may accelerate the "Great Resignation" as people look for "remote" job opportunities or work that is closer to home. It will further exacerbate the real estate challenges of many organizations where predicting capacity needs will become a nightmare. And, very likely draw a bigger divide between employees who have to come to the office / factory and people who can work from home.

As a side note, as I watch gas prices continue to climb, I noticed that those big gas station signs with the digital numbers on them only go to $9.99. I had a flashback to 1980 when gas had to be sold by the liter because the mechanical price reels on the pumps only went to $.999.  We may be seeing that again soon. In the meantime, you might want to invest in companies that make those big gas station signs -- or the temporary number ones that will be bolted to the signs.

OTR: Electric Vehicles

 I saw this article this morning and it pretty well sums up why I won't be buying an electric car anytime soon.  https://www.businessinsider.com/electric-car-road-trip-highlights-issues-driving-cross-country-charging-2022-6

Why?

1. Base cost of the vehicle. Any decent car is expensive these days, but electric cars are around $10,000 more expensive than gasoline powered cars. Yes, you avoid gas stations and oil changes, but you're still paying for electricity.

2. Infrastructure. You have to recharge the vehicle and that means adding a charging station to your garage. Depending on what you need / want, that can be a minor electrician expense or the need to add electrical capacity to your residence. Plugging the car in at night to a regular outline will likely not give you a full charge if the battery is drawn down. On the road, you have to find one that is available and fast. Many of the charging stations out there aren't yet set up for high speed.

3. Range. If I'm just back and forth to the office (40 miles each way), an electric vehicle is fine. But if you're making a longer trip, you're going to need to stop about every 300 miles and hope there is a high speed charger available. My Tiguan can go about 500 miles on a tank of gas -- that's about as much as I can drive by myself in a single day. Getting from home to see my in-laws likely would mean sweating out the last half hour of the drive. I normally will make that trip with one bio break. Having to park and recharge the car for a half hour (or more) is not worth it.

4. Durability. I like to keep my cars for ten years or so. Post-Covid, maybe longer because the miles aren't piling up like they used to. I'm not convinced that electric cars have that durability yet.

Chicago to New Orleans is between 900 and 1000 miles -- around 14 to 15 hours of driving. In my Tiguan, I'd likely be stopping in Tennessee for the night. The reporter indicated that the trip took far longer than expected (although the linked article doesn't give numbers that reflect reality). It sounds like, to be safe, you're stopping for extended charges at least three, and probably four, times. That's going to require good planning. I've read articles that advise people to just plan to have a sit down meal while the car charges. Well, yeah, but when I'm going somewhere, I'd like to get there --  and while leisurely meals are something you probably should do on vacation, that also means you need to find an available charging station near a decent place to eat. You also want to hope that your hotel has a charging station -- and another guest doesn't plug in and head to bed.

So while the prospect of $6 a gallon gas certainly has me looking for options, I'm still not sold on electric cars quite yet. Yes, there are some tax incentives and other means to reduce up front cost, but I think we are still very early in this lifecycle. I'm not ready to be an early adopter.