Hi Myles,
With a small power trawler (?) like yours, your operating costs are different than my costs were operating my diesel sailboat. In 10 years, I put less than 60 hours on the engine, bought less than 25 gallons of fuel ($90), changed the oil once ($35) and replaced a blown head gasket ($45). So the annual operating cost of fuel and maintenance was about $17/year. So it will take over 2 years of electric operation just to cover the cost of the split loom wire covering that I bought to clean things up after the conversion was complete.
I do agree that one should consider their ongoing costs as a possible justification, but everyone's situation is different so the math may not work out the same.
But I do get your point, and it is a good one.
Eric
PS. I was lucky to get rid of my old diesel for free, the scrap guys wanted to charge me $200 of environmental disposal fees....
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Myles Twete" <matwete@...> wrote:
>
> Looking at "conversion costs" vs replacing with another ICE plant paints an
> unfairly negative picture.
>
> You need also to compare the longer term costs including fuel costs and
> maintenance.
>
> And in just my case, this cost savings amounts to some $300/yr or so in
> fuel, oil and maintenance costs (damn carburetor, filters, priming bulb,
> etc.).
>
> In the 8 years now since converting my boat to electric, the conversion cost
> of about $2k has been more than paid for by this $2400+ in cumulative
> savings.
>
> And I still haven't sold the original power head for my outboard. J
>
>
>
> -Myles Twete, Portland, Or.
>
> www.evalbum.com/492
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