I used to carpool where everyone took turns. I am thinking about starting that again with my HCH2 but just being the designated driver.

Should I ask for gas money each day or once a week? Seems like the riders would be saving a bundle riding along.

I said $.15 per mile. I looked at my spreadsheet and I calculate my cost per mile on there. I am at $.09 right now. Based on your choices that would be a 40% markup if I were going to do something like that. You figure the markup can go towards your maintenance costs. Seeing as they will be saving quite a bit on gas and not adding miles onto their vehicles that sounds fair.

We always rotated the designated driver and car. If you start charging, you're starting to look like a bus or taxi driver.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

Yep - maybe thats ok if we are all saving money.

Car pooling has the advantage of the 'passenger seat/mile' at the cost of a scheduling problem ... everyone must start work at roughly the same time and end work at roughly the same time. Although 90% of the time that is true, it is 6:23 PM and my day just ended. On Friday, it ended at 12:00 noon. For those of us who work irregular hours, car pooling doesn't work.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.

nothing, I am not going to charge my sister for carpooling ;p. What Bob say is true though.

OK - yes, I understand about cost of scheduling and not charging your relatives.

I have a 77mi daily commute (round trip). Certainly, if the other drivers in the pool were also getting 50mpg, then we would switch off.

Yeah me too! That's just being practical & fair. I guess charging them at least $0.15 per mile won't hurt them a lot.

I carpool with a guy in my office and we rotate weeks. We give another guy a ride to the Bus stop at a mall, about 25 miles, he pays us $4 each time we give him a ride. $4 is 1 dollar more than the bus cost him but he saves about 20 minutes. The stop adds about 8-10 minutes to our drive but we do it and make $20 bucks a week. Not a bad deal for all.

When I drive the car


When Wife drives the car

If your vehicle is to be the ONLY one used for the carpool, then I wouldn't look at just gas cost. I would look at overall cost of driving including maintenance and upkeep. My spreadsheet shows my current cost per mile to be around $0.39 which includes original purchase price, tax, fuel, and all maintenance, but not insurance. Figure for a non-hybrid, the cost would easily be $0.50 or more (current tax regulations allow $0.585/mi deduction).

For 4 people, I think charging each $0.15/mile would be fair. That's less than what gas would cost for a lot of people, but you still come out ahead.

(It's actually an '09!)